New York City museum fires 3 employees for wearing Palestinian keffiyehs

New York (Quds News Network)- New York City’s Noguchi Museum said on Wednesday it fired three employees after wearing Palestinian keffiyeh head scarves, claiming they violated its updated dress code.

A fourth employee, the Queens museum’s director of visitor services, was also terminated after the dress code changes, the New York Times reported.

Last month, the art museum – founded by Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi – announced a policy prohibiting employees from wearing anything that expressed “political messages, slogans or symbols.”

“While we understand that the intention behind wearing this garment was to express personal views, we recognize that such expressions can unintentionally alienate segments of our diverse visitorship,” it said in a statement.

Natalie Cappellini, one of the three gallery attendants who was fired, took to Instagram to say the museum leadership was weaponizing the term “political” against the Palestinian cause.

“I think the word ‘political’ is being weaponized to censor Palestinian culture and existence,” she said. “The politicization of the kaffiyeh is imposed by leadership.”

She added that the kaffiyeh was “a cultural garment and we are wearing it for cultural reasons.”

A museum spokeswoman confirmed the three firings for dress code violations, which were earlier reported by the website Hyperallergic. She did not elaborate on why the fourth employee, Aria Rostamizadeh, was fired last month, but said it was not for wearing a keffiyeh.

The ban, which does not extend to visitors or staff members outside working hours, was introduced after several employees had been wearing keffiyehs to work for months.

A few days after the museum adjusted its dress code to prohibit political messages, 50 staff members — representing about two-thirds of its full- and part-time work force — signed a petition in opposition.

“The museum has not made any public statement surrounding the ongoing war in Gaza,” the petition said, “but by changing the dress code to ban the kaffiyeh it is taking a public stance.”

On Sunday, September 8, at least 60 people including former workers and supporters protested outside the Queens institution and handed out flyers to inform visitors of the ban.

The demonstration at the museum’s entrance was held concurrently with a performance inside the galleries by musician Alex Zhang Hungtai, who wore a keffiyeh in solidarity with workers. Outside, former Noguchi Museum staffer Trasonia Abbott addressed the crowd as well as Director Amy Hau, Deputy Director Jennifer Lorch, and board co-chairs Spencer Bailey and Susan Kessler — who were not present, but whose names elicited cries from protesters: “Shame!”

“We are gathered here today to mourn a once great museum,” Abbott said into a microphone.

“It’s one thing if I showed up to work wearing Kamala Harris pins. That would be political,” Abbott told Hyperallergic. “But I think that people are being murdered in the mass, industrialized way that it’s happening — that’s not political.”

Cappellini also criticized the museum’s reasoning, calling the policy a “slippery slope.”

“It’s scary to think that anything cultural can be erased on bogus claims of politicization,” she said. “What’s next? What’s the next garment that will be seen as too incendiary?”

When asked by Hyperallergic about her choice to reject the new policy rather than comply and keep her employment, Cappellini said she stood by her decision.

“When Palestinians are silenced all the time in mainstream news, when their perspective is often secondary, when it’s often in the passive voice, wearing a garment that is connected to the culture of Palestinians, that’s beautiful about Palestinian culture — that’s what is valuable to me,” she said.

Across the world in protests demanding an end to Israel’s genocide war in Gaza, pro-Palestine demonstrators have worn the black-and-white keffiyeh head scarf.

The keffiyeh identifies with Palestinian self-determination and has become an emblem of solidarity with the Palestinian cause and Palestinian nationalism.