BURSTRichard Grenell, the Kennedy Center's interim executive director appointed by President Trump following an unprecedented overhaul, says diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs are among the "common sense" cuts being made at the performing arts hub.
"What my management is doing for the Kennedy Center is going through every department, questioning the number of people and the mission for each department, and trying to get us refocused on a common sense mission: bringing arts and entertainment to the Kennedy Center that actually sell tickets," Grenell said in an interview with the Washington Reporter published Wednesday.
"We had spent way too much on programming that doesn't bring in any revenue. And while I'm all for arts education, we can't go into debt to do arts education; my solution is to bring in common sense programming that brings in enough money to use that money for niche programming in the future," he said.
A group focused on social impact at the Kennedy Center will be "massively downsized," according to the publication. A social impact page on the Kennedy Center's website — which had described the Washington institution's commitment to the "belief that the arts hold unique power in our society to build community, center joy, inspire action" — appeared to have been removed on Wednesday.
“What the heck is the Kennedy Center doing funding a group called ‘Social Impact’ when we have $0 in the bank and $0 in reserve?” Grenell said, claiming cuts to DEI-related programs would save more than $2.5 million annually.
Last month, Trump booted multiple members of the Kennedy Center's board and named himself its chair. Calling the Kennedy Center too "woke," the president appointed Grenell, his envoy for special missions, for the interim executive director role.
The shake-up at the Kennedy Center came weeks after Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term aiming to end DEI practices in the federal government.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who served as the social impact team's artistic director and was among those removed, said, “Our work in Social Impact was to widen our cultural radius and to imagine that inspiration itself was a constitutional right afforded to ALL of this nation’s people.”
“My team worked courageously in service of American possibility as authored by artists from all walks of life,” Joseph told the Post.
“No matter what the programming is, whether it's far left or far right or niche, fringe, programming, if it doesn't sell enough tickets, then we’d better have a whole bunch of money in the bank to justify the arts education outreach," Grenell said of the cuts at the Kennedy Center.
"I'm all for arts education. I'm all for challenging the status quo and finding ways to educate people on fringe programming. I actually am somebody who enjoys being challenged by art. I collect art that's not always for the masses and I certainly appreciate it," he said.
"But my my job as the leader is to make sure that the Kennedy Center has a fiscal sound policy, and when you look across the board at the executive pay and the decisions on funding and building operations, I think it's actually criminal for leadership to spend so wildly while asking the public to pay for programming.”