*Well here’s a real switch-a-roo for ya. Black folk are accustomed to being pushed out of the running for jobs, education, and whatever else based solely on the fact that they are not white. But whites rarely…make that never, face the same because they are not black.
Until now.
At least this has been alleged by Samantha Niemann, an undergraduate at Southern Utah University, who is suing the Getty Foundation for discrimination, claiming they wrongfully barred her from an internship program because it aims to increase diversity in the arts.
Niemann filed the lawsuit last Friday in Los Angeles’ Superior Court.
In it she accuses the Foundation of “harassment, discrimination, and retaliation” because they failed to hire or consider her for an internship.
The reality facing this underrepresented group has not been exaggerated. In fact, analysis of 2012 U.S. census data found that nearly four out of five people who make a living from art are white. Arts administration jobs also skew overwhelmingly white.
A National Endowment for the Arts study of cultural institutions found that “91 percent of board members were white, 4 percent were African-American or black, 2 percent were Hispanic, and 3 percent were in the ‘Other’ category.”
Still, all of this is lost on Niemann, who insists she qualifies based on her 3.7 GPA from Southern Utah college.
But “despite Plaintiff’s qualifications, Plaintiff was not hired and excluded from consideration,” Niemann’s lawsuit reads, adding that the Getty Foundation and its staffers “harassed, discriminated, and retaliated against Plaintiff due to and substantially motivated by Plaintiff’s race/national origin.”
Read more at EURThisNthat.
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