Ex-Wadsworth Atheneum employee sues, claiming she was fired for questioning museum equity policy

A former employee of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art who was fired after asking questions about its racial diversity and equity policy is suing the museum, claiming her dismissal was a retaliatory violation of her free speech rights.

Kate Riotte, a curatorial assistant at Hartford’s renowned and oldest-in-the-nation public art museum, was fired in 2021 during a time of transition – director Thomas Loughman, to whom, she reported, left abruptly as the institution was announcing that it would refocus energy on diversity, inclusion and a connection with the “Latinx and African American communities.”

April Swieconek, the Atheneum’s director of marketing and communications, said the museum has not yet been served with the suit and would decline to discuss it in any case because it involves a personnel matter.

The Atheneum created a Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion Task Force in 2021 and Riotte joined it as a volunteer. She said in the suit that she was fired after the task force co-chairmen asked her and others for “thoughts or concerns” on a new “Agenda for Change” that the museum announced would “guide all that we do – from the scope of our programs and services … to our hiring practices and internal culture.”

Riotte emailed her questions to the task force chairs. Her lawyer provided The Courant with the exchanges, which are referred to in the suit filed in U.S. District Court.

“Thank you for sharing the Our Agenda for Change Information from the website! I have a few thoughts and questions, and am hoping you can provide more insight for me” Riotte wrote.

“Why is equity essential for the growth of the Wadsworth? I would think that striving for equity would be detrimental to the organization. Do you have any information to help me understand this? And why is advancing racial equity, specifically, something seen as being attainable, and even desired? Are there more specifics on this?

“Also, what systemic racism is being referred to in the paragraph under Diversity, Equity, Accessibility & Inclusion (DEAI)? I don’t see this defined anywhere.

“I would appreciate it if you could help me to understand.”

In an interview, Riotte said she was worried specifically that the museum could be embarking on a race-based hiring program, and in general, she did not understand the concern about systemic racism and the expansion of equity in the context of what the museum does.

“What I was worried about was hiring based on race,” Riotte said. “That’s illegal. And systemic racism? I was wondering what they meant by that. And I was just hoping they would explain.”

Co-chairs Anne Rice and Joe Bun Keo responded separately. Rice provided materials explaining the issues of equity and racism. Keo, in an email copied to then-museum Deputy Director Michael Dudich, suggested Riotte was a “proponent” for “continued oppression” and denial of opportunity for those who, historically, “have been left out of the equation.”

“Equity is very much integral to the museum’s growth. Equity in this case is the fair impartial assessment of the access to certain resources that have been previously denied or oppressed through system racism and inequity within museum practices,” Keo wrote.

“For example fair living wages. A senior manager shouldn’t be making a high salary if the custodial and security staff hasn’t seen any raises or compensation for being on the front line during a pandemic.

“With the effort of DEAI, the attainment of racial equity is attainable by implementing changes in hiring practices, wage disparities, and the destruction (of) the dominant white male Eurocentric narrative that permeates through the current culture and language of the museums as a whole.”

Keo did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment, which Swieconek said he referred to her.

Riotte said in her suit that she read the materials to which she was referred, but no one from the museum “followed up to discuss” them with her.

According to the suit, five days after emailing the questions, on March 16, 2021, Riotte said Dudich and her supervisor discussed her email during a video conference, acknowledging that some of her questions “arose out of an honest effort to understand a complex issue, but they believed that other questions revealed a political agenda.”

On March 19, Riotte said access to her email account was blocked and she was told to leave work and “self reflect.” On March 22, the suit alleges that Dudich and her supervisor fired her in a telephone call, and that the reason was her “views on equity and equality.” Her termination letter described her “opinions” as “highly confrontational to the Museums [sic] core espoused institutional values.”

Riotte said her mother is a painter and it has been her ambition since childhood to work in museum management. She attended one of a dozen U.S. schools that offer museum studies programs and, after study in Europe, graduated with a degree in museum studies and fine art.

Within weeks of graduation, she accepted the Atheneum job.

“I just tried to get my foot in there as fast as I could,” she said. “For Connecticut museums, it is just a gem. So I jumped at the opportunity. I have been exposed to art since I was a child and a museum career has always been a goal of mine.”

Riotte is suing under the U.S. Constitution’s free speech guarantee and a Connecticut law that protects employees from being fired for constitutionally protected speech, as long as the speech does not substantially interfere with the employee’s job performance or relationship with her boss.

She is asking for reinstatement and financial damages and is represented by The Center for Individual Rights, a nonprofit public interest law firm that says it is dedicated to “the defense of individual liberties against the increasingly aggressive and unchecked authority of federal and state governments.”