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Yale University Art Gallery withdraws federal funding applications over anti-diversity regulations

The Yale University Art Gallery has withdrawn two federal grant applications submitted to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for an upcoming exhibition on African art exploring the migration of Nguni peoples, scheduled for 2026. The gallery objected to new anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, which require that funded projects do not promote certain ideologies based on race or gender. The gallery will instead use Yale University's $46 billion endowment to cover the $200,000 exhibition costs. This follows a previous instance where the gallery opted out of NEA funding, and a separate $30,000 NEA grant for the exhibition "Nusantara: Six Centuries of Indonesian Textile" was rescinded, though that show will proceed with support from the Robert Lehman Endowment Fund.

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Wexner Center for the Arts Workers Call for Institution to Be Renamed Over Top Funder’s Epstein Ties

Unionized workers at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, have demanded that the institution remove the name of top funder Les Wexner from its moniker, citing his close ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. In a letter to Ohio State University leadership, Wexner Workers United (WWU) argued that Wexner’s name on the building harms the center’s mission and community trust. Wexner, a billionaire retail magnate and art collector, donated $25 million to the center’s construction in the 1980s and has been mentioned over a thousand times in the Epstein Files; Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre named Wexner as among those she was trafficked to, though Wexner denies the allegations.