A group led by conservative Edward Blum, who won the legal case effectively ending affirmative action in college admissions, is suing the director of the yet-to-be-built National Museum of the American Latino over an internship program created to increase the number of Hispanics in museum positions.
Blum announced the lawsuit filed by the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER) in a news release Friday, alleging the program violates the Constitution because it is “not equally open to non-Latinos.” The lawsuit names Jorge Zamanillo, the Latino museum’s director, and Crosby Kemper, the Smithsonian’s director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The lawsuit alleges the 12-week Latino Studies Undergraduate internship, started about a year after Congress approved the Latino museum in 2020 as part of the Smithsonian’s network, discriminates because no participant who identifies as non-Latino has been an intern.
“Since the internship started, the Museum has hired two classes of interns: one in 2022 and another in 2023,” the lawsuit states. “In both years, not a single intern identified as Black, Asian, or white. During the same two-year window, at least 25 interns — nearly 90% of participants — self-identified as Latino. No intern identified as non-Latino.”
Congressional legislation designating a site for the National Museum of the American Latino is pending and an opening date has not been set. Exhibits associated with the Latino museum are now displayed in the Molina Family Latino Gallery, part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
The lawsuit cites language used by the museum and its leadership regarding the intention of the internship, which is to bring more Latinos into key museum positions, only 5% of which are filled by Hispanics.
Blum, president of AAER, said that such programs restrict participation to only certain races and ethnicities, and are unfair and illegal.
In an email to NBC News, Blum said that the “nation’s civil rights laws do not permit racial distinctions because some racial groups are overrepresented in various endeavors, while others are under-represented.”
He added that: “Governments, corporations, schools and cultural institutions are forbidden by our civil rights laws from treating people differently because of their race.”
David Coronado, spokesman for the Smithsonian Museum of the American Latino, declined comment, citing a Smithsonian policy of not commenting on pending litigation. Attempts to verify with Smithsonian the numbers used in Blum’s lawsuit were not immediately successful.
Estuardo Rodriguez, president and CEO of the nonprofit Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, called the targeting of the internship program by AAER “shocking.”
The idea of the national museum and internship is to “complete the telling of our diverse American history,” said Rodriguez, whose group advocated for the museum’s existence and is working toward its opening. He noted that the 1994 Smithsonian task force report, documenting the museum network’s neglect of Latinos, highlighted that just 4% of museums exhibited diversity, “not just Latino, but any diversity.”
“We are on a path to complete the telling of American history and starting with that new and next generation of Latinos,” Rodriguez said. “
Rodríguez said AAER’s targeting of the internships “is truly going to tear down the progress that’s been made to bring about a more diverse and all-inclusive telling of our history on the National Mall” and will hinder the achievement of diversity and equal opportunity that AAER claims to protect.
“It’s shocking to me this is how far they are willing to go,” he said.
According to the Smithsonian’s website, a $2.1 million Andrew Mellon Foundation grant allowed Smithsonian to expand its internship and museum studies programs.
