In the past couple of years, Oberlin College, a liberal arts school in Ohio, has embarrassed itself twice, costing it both big bucks and its reputation. The first episode was the Gibson’s Bakery fracas, when, after catching admitted student shoplifters stealing wine, Gibson’s was then punished, defamed, and accused of racism by Oberlin. The courts fined Oberlin $36.6 million for this behavior, which the school paid after trying at all costs to avoid owning up to their defamation (they still haven’t apologized), and now Oberlin’s suing their own insurance companies, which say the court fines aren’t indemnified. Oberlin’s behavior was reprehensible since Gibson’s had no history of racism and was a respected local institution. (All my posts on this sorry episode are here.)
Incident #2: Kim Russell, the coach of Oberlin’s women’s lacrosse team, speaking privately on social media, implied that only biological women should compete on women’s athletic teams. (Russell didn’t count swimmer Lia Thomas, a self-declared trans female, as not the “real winner” of a woman’s swimming match.) Russell violated none of Oberlin’s rules, and it is in fact impossible to have a “women’s team” at Oberlin unless there’s a hormone-treated trans female who wishes to compete, and then the women’s team has to be called a “mixed team” for a year. Medically untreated trans females cannot compete on women’s teams at Oberlin.
Russell was investigated by Oberlin, reproved, and then removed from contact with her beloved athletes and given a desk job. All for supporting what science tells us: men who go through male puberty, and then transition to being trans women, retain their athletic advantages whether or not they’re medically treated. Russell, speaking personally, was exercising her freedom of speech, not making a policy statement.
Now, according to Legal Insurrection, Oberlin has made a third misstep. (Click to read).
Oberlin happens to be in possession, in its art museum, of a valuable drawing by the late Austrian painter Egon Schiele (one of my favorite artists). It turns out that that drawing was owned by a Jewish collector, who, imprisoned in the concentration camp at Dachau, was forced to sign over all his art to the Nazis. The descendants of that deceased collector have been trying to get the drawing back from Oberlin since 2006:
The Manhattan D.A. recently issued a criminal seizure warrant for ‘Girl With Black Hair’ in the possession of Oberlin College’s Allen Museum. Court records in a civil case reveal that the college has been fighting at least since 2006 against return of the drawing. This is in contrast to the college’s repatriation of an item of Native American craft returned to the Nez Perce tribe in 2002. Are items stolen from Jews during the Holocaust less worthy of return than items obtained from Native American tribes?
The D.A. is attempting to recover that drawing and others located at other museums and private collections, which were stolen by the Nazis from Fritz Grünbaum, a prominent Jewish art collector and cabaret artist, who was forced under duress to sign over rights to his collection as part of the Nazi confiscation of Jewish property, while interned at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, where he died in 1941.
While the criminal warrant to Oberlin College and two other institutions put the dispute in the current headlines, the Grünbaum heirs have have been trying at least since 2006 to get Oberlin College to return the drawing, to no avail. We have not seen that long history reported before, and we learned of it while reviewing court filings in a civil case filed against Oberlin College and others in late 2022, which Oberlin College also is fighting. Among other things, Oberlin College disputes the constitutionality of applying the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016.
The story is long, but first have a look at the lovely drawing (worth about $1.5 million) in the Oberlin’s Allen Museum (from the article):
This is a simple matter of right and wrong, and the Manhattan D.A. doesn’t buy Oberlin’s defense (Oberlin’s still in possession of the drawing). What’s worse is that Oberlin voluntarily gave back Native American artifacts that were legally in its possession:
On April 27, 2002, the Oberlin College Department of Anthropology returned to the Nez Perce Tribe a twined root bag that had been lost in their ethnographic collections for over a hundred years. This bag was collected by Henry Harmon Spalding, missionary to the Nez Perce, in the 1840’s, and is part of the Spalding-Allen Collection that is on display at the Nez Perce National Historic Park in Spalding, Idaho. The symposium consisted of lectures on the history of the collection and the development of flat twined weaving in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as panel discussions on museum collections and repatriation of Native American cultural patrimony.
Here’s the returned Native American artifact, the root bag:
So Oberlin refuses to return a valuable Schiele drawing stolen from a Jewish collector, using legal excuses, but voluntarily returns a Native American artifact that was acquired legally.
Even if Oberlin had a legal leg to stand on with the Schiele drawing, it should return it. It’s the right thing to do. By keeping the drawing, Oberlin is implying that it’s okay to hold onto stolen art so long as it was stolen from a Jew, but not okay to hold onto any Native American art, even if acquired legally. As Legal Insurrection concludes,
. . .the question remains, why fight for so long the return of an item stolen by the Nazis during the Holocaust? Why not treat it like the twined root bag returned to the Nez Perce tribe, where ethics and morality — not the law — led Oberlin College to give up its possession? Are items stolen from Jews during the Holocaust less worthy of non-legal ethical considerations than items obtained from Native American tribes?
Why wait until the legal and public pressure mounts? Why not have returned the artwork in 2006, or last year when a civil lawsuit seeking its return was filed. Will it really take a criminal seizure warrant to get back this stolen property?
It’s often said that “integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” No one was watching Oberlin College as relates to Girl With Black Hair for most of the 17 years Oberlin College has been fighting its return. Oberlin College had almost two decades to do the right thing as to the stolen drawing, when no one was watching. Now people are watching, so no virtue signaling is warranted if Oberlin College finally gives up possession of the drawing.
Oberlin College, which professes its social justice bona fides, apparently didn’t consider the return of a stolen drawing taken by the Nazis from a Jewish Holocaust victim to be social justice.
One thing is for sure, if I had a kid, I would not pay for it to go to Oberlin, and I would urge those parents or students considering the school to think twice. It has acted immorally three times now, and shows no signs of having any conscience at all.
h/t: Malgorzata
I think I’ll will forward this to NPR and suggest they do an article on Weekend Edition. I am willing to bet bupkis will come of it.
I won’t take that bet because you’re undoubtedly right!
This and other stolen works of Schiele are now reported to have been seized. Oberlin should have given it back voluntarily, for sure, but this is what the courts are for. Further, nobody should be buying stolen works of art and then claiming that they were “acquired legally.” See the following news reports: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/arts/design/nazi-stolen-schiele-works-seized.html, https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/us-investigators-seize-three-egon-schiele-museums-jewish-heirs-stolen-property-claims-1234679610/, https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/09/new-york-da-orders-seizure-of-egon-schiele-drawing-owned-by-oberlin-college-allegedly-stolen-by-nazis-during-holocaust.html.
They probably need the painting so that they can sell it in order to pay their other debts and stay above water.
As we all know, in the world of the radical woke, Jews don’t count (nod to David Baddiel). Thank goodness that the courts will sort this out and return the painting to its rightful owner. When that happens, Oberlin should have to pay damages to the owner as well, for retaining the painting for decades despite knowing that it was stolen by the Nazis. We’ll see.
If it can be done now, it would be right to execute the criminal seizure warrant and have appropriate authorities go in and just take the drawing. Let Oberlin explore whatever loopholes there may be to get it back for a change.
Returning the drawing would have required Oberlin to violate the fundamental First Commandment, which The Nation magazine received on a peak in Eurasia and passed on to the woke faithful: Thou shallt never, never, ever admit an error.
I thought that was a Trump commandment.
On a tangent that doesn’t affect anything written in the story but…
… is an oxymoron. There’s no such thing as speaking privately on social media. It doesn’t affect Kim Russell’s case because she should have been able to say what she said publicly without reprisals. However, we would all do well to remember that everything we put up on any social media site is potentially public.
If you criticise your employer on social media, do not be surprised if your boss finds out and your career takes a rapid down turn. If you write something controversial, do not be surprised if it leaks out in public and you find yourself the target of a witch-hunt. This especially applies to nuanced Tweets that can be taken out of context easily by the ctrl-left.
Do not put anything on social media that you would not be happy writing on a bill board in Times Square.
My on topic comment: I wonder if they would have any trouble returning the painting to a member of any other oppressed minority. Or is it just that the drawing is likely worth a lot of money whereas the bag is just a bag even if it has got a nice pattern on it?
I may have missed it, but how did the school get it in the first place? I understand if they paid for it not knowing it was hot property they’d have some concerns.
Heck, that root bag seems less of an issue, the odds are it was paid for in good faith in 1840.
Not backing Oberlin here but this is a bit like pass the parcel, the story should be who got the picture from the Nazis, who sold to who until Oberlin ended up with it. When buying an art object is everybody supposed to find out its provenance from the day it was made. Woe betide you are the one finally to be found to own a stolen artifact or even one that some one wants back, just because they can find an excuse why it should be theirs and not yours. btw you may get more comments if commenting were not so difficult.
I think that, if you are buying a work by some street artist, you give the money, take the work and that’s that, but if you are buying top art, you definitely have the responsibility to do some research about it. Too many valuable artworks and archaeological treasures are in the hands of people and institutions who have bought them from, basically, thieves.
The sensationalist headline hunters who wrote this piece have carefully neglected the Oberlin side of the story. The NY DA is in fact after the people who are illegally aquiring this stuff, laundering it, and selling to art collectors like Oberlin’s museum. Oberlin has acknowledged that the item has been seized by NY and will surrender it at some point. They are in fact victims too for having been sold stolen artwork that they thought they were acquiring legally.
Victims my tuchas. The relatives of the guy forced to sell his art have been asking for it back for almost 20 years and Oberlin, despite being able to document that it was acquired illegally, hasn’t relinquished it. They are STILL holding onto it.
They kept it until forced to give it up, knowing that it was immoral of them to keep it. That is reprehensible behavior.
The Native bag seems likely to have been purchased or given to Mr. Spalding, which is very different than valuable art seized by the Nazis.
I conject that the bag is only valuable now because it was collected and preserved by the missionaries. Had he not preserved it, it would likely have been used until it was worn out and discarded.
The moral differences between the possession of the two objects are very large.
Do you know when the drawing was acquired and from whom? Oberlin should return the drawing, but I ask this because my grandfather, Clarence Ward, was director of the museum before and after WWII.
I read the college bought it from a New York art gallery in 1958, one account said for $4,000, another said $500.
The sensationalist headline hunters who wrote this piece have carefully neglected the Oberlin side of the story. The NY DA is in fact after the people who are illegally aquiring this stuff, laundering it, and selling to art collectors like Oberlin’s museum. Oberlin has acknowledged that the item has been seized and will surrender it at some point. They are in fact victims too for having been sold stolen artwork that they thought they were acquiring legally.
YOU ALREADY POSTED THIS AND I ANSWERED IT. ENOUGH!