Editorial: Cultural institutions such as the Field Museum must stop enabling Chicago graft

“When you call, Ed, you know we jump.”

That revealing little piece of sycophancy came from the mouth of former Field Museum President Richard Lariviere and was delivered, obsequiously, to Ed Burke, the former Chicago alderman now accused of corruption and racketeering. The 2017 phone exchange was caught on tape as part of the federal investigation of Burke and played Nov. 20 for a jury.

Lariviere was cleaning up a mess after the Field Museum failed to act according to Burke’s instructions and hire his goddaughter.

There already had been an exchange between a raging Burke and Deborah Bekken, the museum’s director of government affairs and sponsored programs. Burke had been furious his “recommendation” had not delivered the young woman a job.

The Field Museum had quietly called Burke to make sure that the powerful politician would not mess with its plan to quietly hike the admission price, even though that was not his direct jurisdiction. The museum knew he was capable of such antics. And, indeed, according to what the jury heard, the museum was right to be worried: “So now you’re going to make a request of me,” Burke said, according to the recording played in court. “Because if the chairman of the Committee on Finance calls the president of the Park Board, we know your proposal is going to go nowhere.”

Enter Lariviere, all soothing words of flattery and ready to jump all the way to the moon for Burke.

He apologizes for not giving the clouted applicant the job: “We dropped the ball. I’m really feeling s-----.”

He suggests a Burke scholarship as a kind of recompense, or a “mea culpa prize.”

Or maybe a get-in-for-cheap deal for senior residents of Burke’s ward.

Those things didn’t happen, but the Field did later offer Burke’s goddaughter a job at the museum. She didn’t take it because she’d already found something else. Still, the salient fact here is that the offer was made.

Let’s be clear that the main bad actor here is Burke. He’s the public official. Whether it is appropriate for public officials to offer up candidates, or write them recommendations, for desirable jobs is open to debate (and also expected to be an issue in the upcoming trial of Michael Madigan, former speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives), but all reasonable people surely can agree not only that such recommendations should not be used as a potentially illegal quid pro quo, but that making threats in response to a hiring decision going the other way is inappropriate.

Highly inappropriate.

For his part, Lariviere said in the courtroom that he was merely following the instructions of his board to stay on Burke’s good side, as, we’ll add, countless other leaders of Chicago’s most prestigious cultural and educational institutions doubtless were instructed to do.

Lariviere might have been the former president of the University of Oregon, but he had surely been quickly schooled in Chicago realpolitik. Lariviere, let’s be clear, is not accused of illegal activity; indeed, an argument can be made that he was merely doing his job, which was to protect the institution as best he could from any potential Burke attack.

But we say such genuflecting on the part of these institutions to Chicago’s political titans needs to stop, not least because the sycophancy only encourages the behavior.

If officials who try to pull this stuff know they won’t get the desired response, logic would dictate they’ll be less likely to turn the screws. But if someone says, “When you call, Ed, you know we jump,” then the opposite effect naturally occurs.

So, to borrow from his own language, Lariviere was “feeling s-----” about entirely the wrong thing.

His staff hadn’t “dropped the ball” just because Burke’s face apparently was etched thereupon. It’s one thing for a leader to call a powerful politician as a courtesy and a heads-up; it’s another to suggest that the museum was willing to backtrack and do whatever it took for Burke not to feel angry at them, even though he actually had no right to feel that way.

The call with Lariviere happened to be recorded, but we don’t doubt that many of Chicago’s other museums and cultural institutions have found themselves in similar predicaments and taken the path of least resistance.

We shouldn’t be naive. Just because old-school bullies like Burke are starting to get their comeuppance doesn’t mean a new group of pols with modernized versions of this kind of manipulation won’t arise.The leaders of our cultural gems must resolve to develop firmer backbones, stick to their processes, communicate openly and refuse to kowtow to this nonsense in the future. And if saying no doesn’t get the local pooh-bah off their back, blow the whistle.

If this cowardice goes on, not only do they otherwise risk embarrassment in a future courtroom, but they hardly are following their own public commitments to equity and inclusion.

The Field Museum, the Chicago History Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and countless others were here long before Ed Burke. And they’ll be here long after he, and for that matter we, are gone.

These great museums are vital to our city as economic generators, points of pride, educational powerhouses and sources of delight for visitors.

It’s the politicians who should be doing the jumping.

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