Whitney Museum Sued by Warren Kanders Seeking to Revoke Nonprofit Status

A protest against Warren Kanders outside the Whitney Museum in 2019 (photo by author Hakim Bishara for Hyperallergic)

if the Whitney Museum thought life couldn’t get worse in the middle of a global pandemic, the famed New York cultural institution has a potentially massive new headache. Warren B. Kanders, the Whitney Museum’s former vice chairman, has hired Neal Sher, formerly the head of the Justice Department’s Nazi prosecution unit, to represent him in a lawsuit dealing with the calamitous events of the summer of 2019.

In a letter obtained by Hyperallergic, Neal Sher has filed a lawsuit, seeking to revoke the Whitney Museum’s nonprofit tax-exempt status on grounds that the Whitney allegedly “orchestrated and acquiesced in a concerted smear campaign” against its former vice chairman. Sher is now the executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

The May 8, 2020 letter, signed by Sher, purports to speak on behalf of “contributors to and former officials of the Whitney Museum of American Art.” It was sent together with a required IRS Form 13909, a document for whistleblowers wishing to report tax-exempt abuses.

Hyperallergic issued the 2018 report, led by the activist group Decolonize This Place (DTP) “revealing the use of tear gas produced by Kander’s company, Safariland Group, against asylum.” Days latermore than 100 Whitney staffers joined in a letter asking Whitney leadership to respond to the allegations made in the article. As protests increased in a localized movement ‘Nine Weeks of Art and Action’, a chorus of activist voices demanded that Kanders step down from the Whitney Board. In advance of the Whitney Biennial in May 2019, eight artists withdrew from the exhibition.

The activist drama ended when Kander resigned in Jult 2019.

“Led by Robert Hurst of the Board of Trustees, officers and a sizeable number of staff members — supported by the Director, Adam Weinberg — knowingly engaged in conduct which was flagrantly at odds with the Whitney’s charitable purpose,” Sher wrote in his letter, according to Hyperallergic. “Specifically, they orchestrated and acquiesced in a concerted smear campaign against Warren Kanders, a distinguished member of the Board, in order to advance a transparently political agenda which had no relevance whatsoever to the museum’s charitable purpose.”