Category: issues

“Boston places near the top of 11 major cities across the United States in the number of nonprofit cultural organizations in the city and the revenue they earn. But the city’s wealth of arts organizations receive comparatively meager foundation and corporate support, are overburdened with facilities costs, and place dead last in per-capita government funding for the arts.”

“A recent poll by Cherwell, the university’s newspaper, found 54 percent of Oxford students were in favor of letting the statue stand. But Tuesday night’s vote suggests a majority of students stand behind Rhodes Must Fall. During Tuesday night’s debate, Professor Biggar argued that if “Rhodes must fall, so must Churchill, whose views on empire and race were similar. And so probably must Abraham Lincoln.”

Wellesley and Swarthmore Colleges had a serious rivalry over it. A Harvard professor collected measurements from female students all over the Northeast. Every few years a big-city newspaper announced a new Venus. There was even a full competitive event at Madison Square Garden.

“Photographing the day-to-day life of an African-American family, Parks was able to capture the tenderness and tension of a people abiding under a pernicious and unjust system of state-mandated segregation.”

“Extell sought the additional air rights to build a cantilevered section of its skyscraper 30 stories above the league’s roof. For a real-estate-rich, cash-poor nonprofit like the league, the sale represented an attractive source of revenue.”

“‘Diversity,’ the lack of it and need for it, has been discussed and debated ad nauseam. But diversity isn’t a civic duty, it’s an artistic necessity. For any art form to remain relevant, it must grow with the society it explores, questions, criticizes and represents.”

More than a third of all Oxford University students – and nearly half of its black and minority ethnic (BAME) students – believe the statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes should be removed from the building of Oriel college.

Yes, this year’s parade had some unfortunate displays of bigotry – even as, in other ways, it’s become more inclusive. “The Mummers represent a wild, exuberant, and frankly bizarre tradition that deserves to continue; where else can you see your electrician dance down the street as a sequined cow carrying a miniature umbrella?”

“If the administration or backstage crew at your opera or ballet company, or the audience for your symphony or theatre company, or the board of directors of your art gallery, does not demonstrate a “commitment to reflecting the diversity of your organization’s geographic community or region,” this will now affect the size of grant received from the federal arts council.”

The tax agency approves nonprofit status for a relatively circumscribed number of organizational aims: Only sports leagues, cruelty-prevention advocacies, public-safety organizations, and groups with a “charitable, religious, educational, scientific, [or] literary” purpose can secure a 501(c)(3) exemption.