By Randall Yip, AsAmNews Executive Editor
The Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, its director and five museum employees are facing a discrimination complaint filed by a former curator.
Rachel Parikh alleges in a lawsuit read by AsAmNews that during her employment at the Museum, she faced a “hostile and offensive work environment” as well as retaliation “because she is a brown-skinned woman of South Asian (Indian) descent.
She accused the defendants of mocking and ridiculing her.
Parikh’s lawsuit says WAM’s director Matthias Waschek has a history of similar complaints dating back to his time with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation where the suit says “a number of female staff members came forward with sex and age discrimination and retaliation claims against him.”
Waschek also faced a wage and sex discrimination complaint filed by another WAM worker in 2015. That complaint was settled out of court, according to Art News.
Parikh began working at WAM in February 2020. During her first week on the job, she alleged in her lawsuit that her supervisor paid little attention to her and did not offer to show her around or even introduce her to her co-workers.
Parikh said she spent the entire first week cleaning out her desk and work area from the mess left by the employee she replaced.
In December 2020, Parikh expressed concern about what she considered “racist, dated and insensitive language” used by a co-workier in connection with a news release. That language was removed but she said later reinserted without Parikh’s knowledge. Parikh alleges she complained to her supervisor but said that supervisor “dismissed, demeaned and chastised” her.
Her lawsuit also accuses her supervisor of relaying a message from Waschek asking her to dress a certain way for future presentations. Parikh alleges that her supervisor told her to “zhuzh up” because as a “young curator…she needed to do these things.”
Parikh also charged that Waschek on several occasions mocked an Indian accent and together with his husband made sexually suggestive and offensive remarks.
“I have worked hard over the last thirty plus years to build a reputation of professionalism and integrity,” Waschek wrote in a statement to Art News. “As a gay man who has experienced discrimination first-hand, I have always held DEAI issues as a core value, and have sought to do my best to eliminate discrimination from the workplace and build a culture of inclusivity. To read these patently false statements and to see my husband, who doesn’t even work at the Museum, dragged into it and similarly maligned, is staggering.”
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.
We are supported through donations and such charitable organizations as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A big thank you to all our readers who supported our year-end giving campaign. You helped us not only reach our goal, you busted through it. Donations to Asian American Media Inc and AsAmNews are tax-deductible. It’s never too late to give.
Please also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and X.