Biggest Chicago Museum has woke idea: Fire 150 volunteer "docents" and replace with $25/hr minorities

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the largest and oldest art museums in the U.S.  Before the plandemic it drew about 1.5 million visitors per year.

Like almost all museums, this one depended on long-time, highly knowledgeable volunteers--"docents"--to guide tours of museum visitors.  There were about 150 of these, most of whom were retired women who had time to spare.

Last week the Art Institute fired all those volunteers.  (Yes, I know: how do you fire someone who isn't an employee, eh?)

Most rational adults would probably wonder why the woke execs fired the docents.  Were the ladies getting high while volunteering?  Perhaps telling tour takers embarrassing tales about how a certain painting was acquired?

The answer lies with the museum’s new "Woman’s Board Executive Director, Learning and Public Engagement," Victoria Stein, who was hired earlier this year.

Stein, who is black, didn't fault the volunteers for lack of art-history knowledge, or for poor work ethics while volunteering, or indeed, for any failing.  Instead Stein's complaint was that there wasn't enough "DIEversity and inclusiveness" among the volunteers.   See, most were retired white women.

To Stein, that was the entire problem.  She insisted that what the museum needed was to have the docents be people of color, and other minorities, to "create a culture of diversity and inclusion."

And in the brilliant tradition of dictators everywhere, instead of inviting retired people of color, and gays, and trannies to join the group and spend a year or two learning about the thousands of "major" works in the museum's collection, Stein had a...different idea.

Fire all the current volunteers at once, then hire “diverse” replacements--and pay them $25 an hour.

Stein was happy that the directors swooned over her brilliant plan. “I am delighted that the Art Institute shares the priorities that have guided my work throughout my career: designing culturally responsive programming and anti-racist curricula and ensuring staff wellness and learning,” she said.

Ah yes, nothing says "I'm anti-racist" more than firing 150 long-experienced, highly knowledgeable *volunteers* because you don't like their color.  But it's what we've come to expect from socialist/"wokie" liberals.  

Stein was just getting started:  "As a civic institution, we acknowledge our responsibility to *rebuild the volunteer educator program* in a way that allows community members of all income levels to participate, responds to issues of class and income equity, and *does not require financial flexibility to participate.*  Rather than *refresh* our current program, systems, and processes, *we* feel that now is the time to rebuild our program from the ground up."

Stein would be right at home in North Korea.  "Rather than refresh our current program...."  Translation: we could have brought in more people of color, but then we couldn't have paid them without being accused of racism, so better to fire the entire *volunteer* corps at one time.  The phrasing is positively Stalinesque.

If you're thinking that firing 150 people in their 60's, almost all of the same race, must surely violate one of the hundreds of federal laws against age and race discrimination, volunteers aren't covered by laws against discrimination because they're not legally considered employees.  

To cover for Stein's and the board's moronic decision, the board graciously declared that the fired docents were welcome to apply for one of the paid positions.  Of course since Stein and company just fired the volunteers for being white, no rational adult would think the same women would have a chance one of the now-paid jobs.

Finally, although cost is rarely a consideration for socialists and self-proclaimed "anti-racists," let's look at the cost of Stein's great idea:  If the museum previously fielded, say, 20 docents during operating hours, at $25 an hour that's $500 an hour, so for an 8-hour day that would be $4,000.  Multiply by 300 days per year and you're looking at $1.2 million per year.  And when you look at the cost of employee benefits, like medical, employers social security and so on, the standard rule of thumb is that a business's actual costs are about double the wage paid, so a cool $2.4 million per year.

Of course it's such a grand idea--so woke!--that the biden/harris regime will surely order that the cost be paid by federal taxpayer funds.

Oh, you say you don't think that's constitutional?  Hahahahahaha!  Don't be silly!  Democrats can do anything they want.  Elections have consequences, citizen!

Victoria Stein (job title too long to fit here)

  Source.