Evaluating equity: Assessing diversity efforts through a social justice lens

This paper provides a formative evaluation of The Art Institute of Chicago’s initial efforts to diversify the museum field through the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative (DAMLI) programme. DAMLI is supported by the Walton Family Foundation and Ford Foundation as part of a movement to diversify the arts & cultural workforce in the United States. In Spring, 2018 the author was contracted to evaluate the museum-wide initiative to systematize and improve the experiences of high school, college, and graduate interns from demographic groups currently underrepresented in museum leadership fields. Through the use of [Fraser, N. (1995). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. New Left Review, 36, 1–19.] social justice framework, this paper will focus on the recruitment, selection, and management of internship experiences of the first four cohorts of undergraduate and graduate-level interns within the programme. The paper begins with an overview of recent diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the arts & cultural sector – highlighting the systemic issues leading to the need for such initiatives and presenting a typology for organisational responses to the issue. This paper then categorise the type of organisational change sought by The Art Institute of Chicago based on Fraser’s two-dimensional social justice conditions and remedies framework in order to assess whether or not the Art Institute is achieving its goal of attracting, retaining, and empowering a diverse set of students and influencing their decision to pursue a career in the museum field by providing an equitable and inclusive environment during the internship. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of this work for arts and cultural organisations interested in diversifying the cultural workforce.