Janine Christiano
The Metro Arts Commission on Thursday terminated strategic funding and initiatives manager Janine Christiano. The embattled department has been at the center of equity concerns in Metro government since former staffers Cecilia Olusola Tribble and Lauren Fitzgerald filed complaints against agency leadership in August. Christiano was the first and only person of color in a management position at the agency. Her termination follows a series of HR investigations into the aforementioned complaints, a complaint by Christiano about leadership, and complaints by former executive director Caroline Vincent and public art coordinator Atilio Murga, both about Christiano.
Finance and operations director Ian Myers was appointed as interim executive director following the resignation of Caroline Vincent in April. On the morning of Friday, May 27, Christiano received a letter from Myers informing her of a disciplinary hearing to determine if action would be taken against her. Myers charged Christiano with nine counts, including providing false information to Metro HR; creating an “intimidating atmosphere” by sharing information with two subordinates and documenting complaints about former ED Caroline Vincent; and interfering with Murga’s work performance “due to the terms he used to identify his race.” The disciplinary hearing occurred the following Tuesday, May 31.
Myers’ charges also claim that the “use of aggressive language describing [former] director Vincent’s actions could be behavior that creates an intimidating environment, as exampled, but not limited to your response to your performance evaluation.” Christiano addressed this letter to the commission — a body separate from the agency staff — and it is unclear how it would create an intimidating environment for Vincent, Myers or other staff members. Myers does not charge Christiano with intimidating members of the commission.
On Monday, the Nashville chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice launched a campaign calling for the commission to terminate Myers’ employment and vote to remove commission chair Jim Schmidt. Called Save Metro Arts, the campaign claims that the commission has “fully lost the trust of the arts community.”
The petition, which was posted by freelance arts administrator Alan Fey, reads, in part: “Metro Arts leadership has failed at following its own cultural equity statement by creating a toxic workplace for staff and discriminating against women of color.” It also claims that “Myers has retaliated against [Christiano] for filing a complaint about this discrimination by threatening her with termination using the ‘official channel’ of a disciplinary hearing.”
It further states: “Commission Chair Jim Schmidt has provided unwavering support of former ED Vincent and current Interim ED Myers, never questioning their roles in these allegations and elevating Myers to ED [despite him] being named in multiple complaints.”
“The Arts Commission has fully lost the trust of the arts community,” the petition concludes. “It is hard to believe they can carry out the important work of — as the mission statement says — ‘ensuring that ALL Nashvillians have access to a creative life,’ when that does not even apply to Metro Arts Staff.” The petition notes that SURJ plans to deliver the petition to the commission at its next scheduled meeting at noon on June 16, at the Metro Southeast Building.
SURJ links to a document that encourages readers to contact their councilmembers and the mayor about relieving Myers and Schmidt of their duties and reinstating Christiano.
On Thursday night, Fey sent an email to supporters with an update:
I am sending you an update because as of today, Strategic Funding & Initiatives Director Janine Christiano was terminated from her position effective immediately, as a direct result of the disciplinary hearing. I have read the results from All Five Metro HR "Fact Finders Report" [sic] that were issued in response to complaints made by former employees Tribble, Fitzgerald, Christiano, former E.D. Vincent and current employee Murga. There’s a lot to say about them (and I am happy to share those public documents, you may reply to this email), but it essentially boils down to Metro HR Fact Finders ignoring the calls for equity by women of color (and more staffers who they chose not to interview), and only listening to the white leaders of Metro Arts. Janine Christiano was a whistleblower and she was punished for it by Interim Exec. Dir. Ian Myers with the unwavering support of Commission Chair Jim Schmidt, the official blessing of Metro HR, and Mayor John Cooper who is ultimately responsible for both the Department staff and Commission members.
A spokesperson for Mayor John Cooper’s office declined to comment.
Update, June 13: Schmidt sent comment to the Scene:
The commission is only responsible for oversight of the executive director, not the disciplinary matters of individual staff members. That is the responsibility of the executive director. Given the findings of several of the independent HR fact finding reports and the results of the review panel process on those claims, I believe [interim] director Myers had rationale for this decision.
To those in the public who have called for my removal as chairman of the Arts Commission, I will restate what the role of each party is — the whole commission provides oversight of the ED, not just the chair. As chair, I am included on notifications of the HR processes but I am not a decision maker to the actions nor the responsible party to initiate those hearings. I serve at the pleasure of the commission members and my term as chairman is complete in September, at which point I hope vice chair [Matia] Powell will take over. The commissioners will decide that as a body. The chair runs the proceedings of commission meetings and is provided regular updates from the ED but they are not a member of the day-to-day staff — though over the course of the last year, it has felt that way. I am hopeful with Metro [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] leadership’s work with the staff, the commission’s approved improvement items, selection of a new executive director and the development of a new strategic plan, that Metro Arts will finally have the reset that is required to move forward and continue serving our artists and Nashville.
Update, Aug. 19, 2024: Christiano settled with the Metro Government for $22,000 — "approximately the amount of pay I would have received during the time I was unemployed during the summer of 2022," she notes. Metro officially changed Christiano's termination status to "resigned," and she is now the GARE (Government Alliance on Race and Equity) director of strategic partnerships at Race Forward.
