Trump's Art Committee, Including Evanston Violinist, 93, Resigns En Masse

EVANSTON, IL — The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities submitted a joint letter of resignation Friday, citing an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and President Donald Trump's response to last weekend's terror attack in Charlottesville, Virginia. Evanston resident Howard Gottlieb was among the open letter's signatories.

"Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions," said the letter, addressing Trump. "The false equivalencies you push cannot stand... We must be better than this."

Gottlieb, 93, is a general partner at a private investment firm as well as an accomplished violinist and a life trustee of the Chicago Symphony. He's also a board member at the Ravinia Festival, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Merit School of Music and the American Friends of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, according to a biography on the committee's website.

Read the full text of the letter from the appointed members of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities below:

Dear Mr. President:

Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville. The false equivalencies you push cannot stand. The Administration’s refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions. We are members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). The Committee was created in 1982 under President Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues. We were hopeful that continuing to serve in the PCAH would allow us to focus on the important work the committee does with your federal partners and the private sector to address, initiate, and support key policies and programs in the arts and humanities for all Americans. Effective immediately, please accept our resignation from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

Elevating any group that threatens and discriminates on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, orientation, background, or identity is un-American. We have fought slavery, segregation, and internment. We must learn from our rich and often painful history. The unified fabric of America is made by patriotic individuals from backgrounds as vast as the nation is strong. In our service to the American people, we have experienced this first-hand as we traveled and built the Turnaround Arts education program, now in many urban and rural schools across the country from Florida to Wisconsin.

Speaking truth to power is never easy, Mr. President. But it is our role as commissioners on the PCAH to do so. Art is about inclusion. The Humanities include a vibrant free press. You have attacked both. You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding. The Administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Act, and attacked our brave trans service members. You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country. This does not unify the nation we all love. We know the importance of open and free dialogue through our work in the cultural diplomacy realm, most recently with the first-ever US Government arts and culture delegation to Cuba, a country without the same First Amendment protections we enjoy here. Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed.

Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions. We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.

Gottlieb declined to comment on his resignation to the Chicago Tribune Friday, telling Kim Janssen the letter — which spells out "R-E-S-I-S-T" in the first letters of each paragraph — speaks for itself.

Actor and activist Kal Penn, until Friday a member of the committee, posted the full text of the letter to social media. He said every member has now stepped down, making it the first official White House department to resign.

The committee's honorary chair is Melania Trump, although there is no indication she has had any involvement with it so far. In addition to its appointed members, the committee includes the chiefs of a dozen federal agencies — like the National Endowments for the Arts, the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress — that operate cultural programs. None of those agency heads signed the resignation letter.

Beside Penn and Gottlieb, other members to resign included Paula Boggs, Chuck Close, Richard Cohen, Fred Goldring, Vicki Kennedy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anne Luzzatto, Thom Mayne, Eric Ortner, Ken Solomon, Caroline Taylor, Jill Cooper Udall, Andrew Weinstein and John Lloyd Young.

Some members of the committee told Variety they were unsure whether the president knew it existed. Variety was told the Obama-appointed members had expected to resign after Trump was inaugurated but were asked to stay on during a period of transition.

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