Undertaking research, questioning what conventional thought considers unquestionable, and exploring new ideas and alternative views of human experience and the world around us are foundational to the role of academic museums and galleries. These responsibilities parallel, on several points, the nature of artistic creation and scientific inquiry, and utilize academic museums and galleries as research centers appropriate to our parent universities and colleges.
While careful discrimination is necessarily part of the deliberation about what we collect and exhibit–a deliberation that involves many parties and points of view in our atmosphere of debate, learning, and research–censorship is not.
Censorship is here defined as allowing a singular point of view, personal prejudice or questionable cultural bias to suppress the open exchange of ideas, the lifeblood of academe.
The AAMG strongly condemns such censorship and most particularly when it concerns art and scientific exhibitions and the development of collections.
Categories: AAMG Press Release