UMKC faces criticism for silence over removal of gay rights exhibit from capitol
The removal from the Missouri Capitol of an exhibit tracing Kansas City connections to the gay rights movement has brought condemnation upon state legislators and Gov. Mike Parson’s administration.
Now, the University of Missouri-Kansas City faces criticism for not publicly objecting to the relocation.
Individuals involved in creating the exhibit — called “Making History” — say UMKC has been unacceptably quiet as the controversy has played out over the past week-and-a-half despite the university’s integral role in the project. A 2016 class developed and curated the display, and an online version is hosted on the UMKC website and bears the university logo.
Chris Cantwell, who taught the public history class that created the exhibit, said UMKC had “put its head in the sand” during the uproar.
“At the end of the day, this is the governor bullying and silencing the work of graduate and undergraduate students from UMKC,” Cantwell said. “And it would seem like a home run for the chancellor of UMKC to come out and stand in support of its students and their work as well as signaling UMKC’s broader support to the LGBT community.”
To create the exhibit, students used collections from UMKC’s Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America, according to an Aug. 27 post on the archive’s Facebook page celebrating its installation at the state Capitol.
The exhibit was on display at the Missouri State Museum, a state park in the first-floor halls of the Capitol, just a few days before the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) removed it following complaints from a legislative staffer.
After widespread backlash, Parson said the department had removed it after receiving complaints, but only because it had not followed a procedure to get approval from the Board of Public Buildings — which has not approved a museum exhibit in the past nine years, meeting minutes show. DNR moved the exhibit the next day to the second floor of a state historic site down the street from the Capitol.
The board, which consists of the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, met Monday afternoon for about four minutes. It adjourned after approving the sale of bonds for state parks improvements and an easement on public property for electric utility lines with no discussion of the exhibit. Parson’s spokeswoman Kelli Jones declined to make him available for comment afterward.
Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe told reporters after the meeting that whether the board is the appropriate avenue for approving the exhibit is “the new question that I’m trying to find out myself.”
“Some parts of our history are uncomfortable to different groups of people for different reasons, but it is history,” he said when asked about the exhibit.
But he declined to comment on the Parson administration’s decision to remove it, saying, “That ship sailed already.”
UMKC hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment over the past week. It has said only that the exhibit “was recently invited to be a temporary exhibit in the Missouri State Museum on the first floor of the state capitol.”
“To be frank, I’ve been really disappointed the UMKC administration hasn’t spoken out in support of its students’ work,” said Kate Carpenter, a former student who was a co-curator of the exhibit.
The university’s public silence stands in contrast to the vocal denunciations of history and museum groups, both in Missouri and nationally.
The National Council on Public History has written to Parson asking him to reconsider the removal, as has the Missouri Association for Museum Archives. The Mid-Missouri Civil Liberties Association is considering filing a lawsuit, said Dan Viets, an attorney on the organization’s board.
UMKC, led by Chancellor C. Mauli Agrawal, is a member of the University of Missouri System, which is overseen by the Board of Curators, who are all appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. Parson has appointed five of the board’s nine members; the others were named by Gov. Eric Greitens or Gov. Jay Nixon.
“Universities are supposed to promote research and protect students,” Cantwell said. “UMKC’s really not doing either right now.”
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 11:28 AM.
