Stone’s Throw: ArtsWestchester’s Leader Navigates Federal Policy Shifts

By Adam Stone

A few weeks ago I published a brief piece about the impact of the new White House on the local arts community, and I wasn’t able to connect with ArtsWestchester CEO Kathleen Reckling by the time we published the report.

In a nutshell, the piece took a quick look at how a President Trump executive order on DEI is being felt by local affiliate arts groups. 

Area arts organizations – and groups across the country – are facing federal funding complications as National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) guidelines aim to prohibit diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts.

The mandate – following Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order banning DEI programs – is forcing some arts groups reliant on NEA funding to reconsider the verbiage in their official policies and messaging.

But, interestingly, Reckling began our conversation yesterday by highlighting the fact that two additional executive orders are also complicating the work of arts organizations. 

One of the other orders requires grant recipients to certify compliance with the federal government’s framing of anti-discrimination laws, and another essentially rejects the legitimacy of some people being transgender, stating that policies will “recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.” 

“And these three have really shaken us, I think, to the core because they are not just saying in a way, change your language, they really feel like attempts at erasure, erasing years of work that organizations and individuals across sectors have done to ensure that the voices at every level of leadership reflect the true makeup of communities and then on the other side, erasing complete entire identities and groups of people and all of the organization,” lamented Reckling, who started in the top executive position in July after serving as ArtsWestchester’s chief operations officer, succeeding longtime CEO Janet Langsam.

As a result, some local arts groups are tweaking the specific language in their DEI policies while trying to maintain the same spirit of acceptance.

“I think for the most part a lot of groups are keeping things in place,” Reckling told me in our phone interview yesterday afternoon. “Certainly we fielded some questions like, ‘We just submitted our DEI statement. We wanted to write a new one. Should we be writing a new one?’ I think those are questions that are bubbling up, but I have yet to see an organization that’s gone in and actually removed it.”

Language Cops 

Let me make a quick editorial point. Even as someone who believes deeply in aiming for equality of opportunity in the public sphere, I understand the intellectually honest critiques of some DEI initiatives, viewing them as overly bureaucratic and trying to promote liberal orthodoxy, not just compassion and varied perspectives.

While the more hateful attacks on DEI make it tough to hold a constructive conversation, there should be room to engage in a real and important debate over how to address an uneven playing field.

Generally speaking, people on the left too often seem to assume that identifying the right problem automatically by extension makes their highly specific proposed solutions unimpeachably righteous.

Recognizing and understanding our country’s checkered history with equality and acknowledging systemic barriers does not mean that every DEI initiative is inherently helpful.

While that debate needs to happen in the culture, the federal government policing language that most arts groups genuinely believe deep in their collective bones remains counterproductive and dangerous.

Left wing language cops have their excesses – the solution isn’t a right-wing language police force at the federal level designed to delete words and ideas that people and groups embrace. 

I did ask Reckling about legitimate criticisms of DEI – those who acknowledge the worthwhile values while panning some of the rigidness, groupthink, and selective outrage, a particular concern related to fighting all forms of antisemitism, from the left and the right.

But Reckling insightfully emphasized the real value related conversations have helped produce in recent years. 

“It certainly pushed a lot of people to have really important conversations and to look really, really deeply at how they’re serving, who they’re serving and who gets to make decisions, who is at the table and who’s missing from the table,” stressed Reckling, who holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Columbia University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. 

Pushback 

Meanwhile, arts groups are forced to play something of a rhetorical game, compelled to brainstorm on “how to think about sharing our stories in ways that align with this directive to not use the words diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility,” Reckling said.

“So apparently,” the CEO added, “there’s like a hundred other words that are now banned from federal websites, but does that make sense?”

There’s also the chilling effect on artistic exhibitions. 

Late last month the Art Museum of the Americas canceled environmental artist Andil Gosine’s Nature’s Wild, just weeks before a planned Mar. 21 opening in Washington, DC, amid ongoing efforts to align with the administration’s DEI crackdown.

Yet the pushback on the pushback on the culture war pushback continues.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the NEA, challenging its prohibition on funding projects related to DEI – the federal government has since rescinded its certification requirement that artists attest not to “promote gender ideology” in funding applications, at least while the outcome of the case is pending.

Reuters also reported yesterday that Harvard Medical School doctors are suing the Trump administration for removing their LGBTQ-related research from a government patient safety website.

‘Basic Human Kindness’

Yet part of the solution moving forward might be some arts groups avoiding an overreliance on the NEA. 

Marlene Canapi, a growth strategist at nonprofit Arc Stages in Pleasantville, noted for me late last month how her organization already sustains itself without much federal funding, empowering the group to remain steadfast in the face of the new national mandates.

“Art is for all,” Canapi said in our interview. “We don’t ask whether you’re red or blue. What we provide is for everyone. It’s about basic human kindness. DEIA doesn’t have to be a dirty word.”

Both Canapi and Reckling also mentioned a list of elected state officials who champion the arts.

Local State Sen. Shelley Mayer, for instance, has credited Reckling’s organization for being a central organizing force behind the county’s bustling arts offerings. 

“In Westchester,” she stated last March, “we are so fortunate to have beautiful forms of art all around us, much of it thanks to ArtsWestchester.”

Assemblyman Chris Burdick, for his part, told me in late February that the policing of DEI-related language in grant applications is “disheartening,” also saying how “these vibrant arts organizations” serve “our entire diverse community.” 

“The arts bring people together and help facilitate understanding and inclusion,” the assemblyman stated. “This mandate goes against the very heart of arts and culture. They have a proverbial gun to their heads, and understandably have no choice but to remove the references or risk losing their funding.”

In fact, Reckling said many organizations ArtsWestchester works with feature “vulnerable communities who now feel much more vulnerable.”

“And the groups are concerned about funding not just from the federal level, but how some of these executive orders might be interpreted and trickle down into other sources of funding,” she observed. “How they might affect corporate giving, for example.”

Resilience  

However, advocacy efforts are gaining momentum. 

Back in Sept., New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had announced up to $80 million in capital funding available to nonprofit arts and cultural organizations through the New York State Council on the Arts Capital Projects Fund. 

“Our colleagues from across the state are supporting and working with elected officials at the state level to increase NYSCA’s allocation to $200 million,” Reckling said. “So that is one place that is potentially growing.”

Despite the challenges, Reckling also pointed to her community’s strength.

ArtsWestchester is awarding $30,000 in grants to artists advancing inclusion and belonging, including $25,000 to White Plains-based Ballet des Amériques and $5,000 to Croton singer/songwriter Flor Bromley at its 60th anniversary Arts Awards next month, on Apr. 9 at the Sonesta Hotel in White Plains.

The criteria for the award is to demonstrate leadership in advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in and through the arts.

“This,” Reckling concluded, “will be an opportunity to recognize the resiliency of the artistic community and the impact that it has in our areas.”