“If Brandeis doesn’t back off, we’ve got big trouble” (updated)

The Boston Globe just reported that yesterday “more than 50 members of the Rose family … demanded the continued operation of the museum that bears their name and denounced plans to sell the art to pay its bills.”

” ‘Re-purposing’ the museum is closing by another name,” Meryl Rose, a Rose board member who is representing the family, said last night. “It would not be the Rose. Any other understanding of the university’s current plan is misinformation. The administration wants to control money given to the Rose for museum purposes, to sell precious works of art, and to close the museum. We object.”

Additionally, Rose Museum’s chairman Jonathan Lee has hired a Boston attorney, Edward Terry Dangel III to contest the closing and sale of artworks. “‘If Brandeis doesn’t back off, we’ve got big trouble,’ said Dangel, who said that the university would be violating the intent of donors if it were to sell the art they gave to the museum.”

In addition to their demands, the Rose family is asking the Museum to renew the contracts with the museum’s director and his staff. According to the Wall Street Journal, “the employees have been told their positions will be eliminated at the end of June.” In a final blow, “Meryl Rose, who is married to a cousin of the museum’s original donors and serves on the art museum’s board, said family members, including some who are lawyers, are reviewing their legal options.”

It seems that with each passing day, and mounting public threats, Brandeis is inching closer to reneging on its original plan of closing the museum and selling its artworks. At the risk of sounding cynical, either this was a badly thought-out decision, or one of genius caliber. Who’s to say this isn’t part of a campaign drive to bring more money and attendees to a seemingly irrelevant museum?

Update: March 17, 2009

Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz has admitted that the statement announcing the closing of the Rose Art Museum and the selling of all of its artworks “was a ‘screw-up.”