This story is a partnership between the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Scene. For more information, visit NashvilleBanner.com.
At the end of a meeting Monday in which the Metro Human Relations Commission found that the Metro Arts Commission treated individual artists in a “discriminatory” manner, MHRC executive director Davie Tucker revealed that he is being investigated over allegations from three Metro Arts employees of assault, intimidation and coercion. And he alleged Metro Legal was behind the accusations.
“Metro Legal has weaponized employees at Metro Arts,” Tucker said. “Wally Dietz said in two public forums he has given ‘whistleblower protection’ to certain individuals. I have it on good measure that the individuals who have lodged these charges against me are the same ones who are a part of the investigation going on at [Metro] Arts who have been given whistleblower protection.”
This came at the tail end of a two-hour MHRC meeting fully devoted to unpacking a report put together by Tucker and his staff in response to complaints of discrimination in Metro Arts’ grant distribution process. Metro Arts has been embroiled in controversy over the past year due to decisions made over that process, delays in grant distributions, allegations of financial mismanagement at Metro Arts and allegations of behavior from management creating an intimidating work environment. Tucker cited the allegations against him as an increase in intensity to a process that has made his and the MHRC’s work increasingly difficult.
In comments to the Nashville Banner, director of law Dietz emphatically denied the allegations against his department.
Law director Wally Dietz tells Arts Commission greater financial controls needed, outside law firm investigating complaints about work environment
“The fact that my friend and colleague Davie Tucker would make a baseless accusation against me without speaking with me first is beyond disappointing,” Dietz says. “His accusation that I somehow weaponized arts commission employees to attack him is categorically false.”
He says that he has a duty to the “whistleblowers.”
“It is true that I have made public comments that a number of arts employees have approached various Metro departments with concerns about workplace conduct and the propriety of certain financial transactions,” Dietz says. “State law protects them as whistleblowers, and I will never apologize for protecting Metro employees who, in good faith, raise concerns about workplace misconduct or financial mismanagement or malfeasance. My comments were directed to the Director of Arts and the Commission to warn them not to discipline employees in retaliation for their whistleblowing. My comments had nothing to do with Director Tucker or the MHRC investigation.”
Dietz added that he had nothing to do with three Arts Commission employees who “lodged formal complaints with Metro HR.”
At the commission Monday night, Tucker released a report that was the product of six complaints made by Nashville artists who either had their grant funding cut or completely taken as the result of an overturned Metro Arts Commission vote over the summer.
“As executive director of the Metro Human Relations Commission, I emphatically, indubitably find probable cause that there’s been discriminatory action here,” Tucker said. Not only did the report recommend the MHRC hold a public hearing to investigate the discrimination, it also found that Metro Legal had “potentially overstepped” in its dealings with the Metro Arts Commission over the past year.
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The Metro Arts Commission is responsible for distributing grant funding to Nashville artists and arts organizations. The report found that since 1987, the commission has awarded approximately $61,572,329 to arts organizations in Nashville, and 71 percent of it has gone to organizations with an annual budget of $1 million or more.
In 2022, new Metro Arts Director Daniel Singh led an effort to create a formula that would provide more equity for how grants are distributed, funding Nashville’s arts community at historic levels. The Metro Arts Commission adopted that funding formula in December 2022, but when Metro’s budget season rolled around, it did not receive enough funding to fulfill that formula. So in July 2023, the commission voted on another formula that was created by an outside consultant. That one would have funded independent artists at historic levels, cutting funding for larger organizations such as the Frist and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, as well as for some midsize organizations that had historically received funding.
When the Arts Commission was presented with that formula, one of the data points presented was the impact it would have on BIPOC artists and organizations versus white artists and organizations.
“The mere awareness of consideration of race in efforts to remedy discrimination and its effects does not automatically equate to an unlawful racial classification,” Melody Fowler-Green, MHRC's outside counsel in its investigation, said. She argued that the July decision was “legally defensible” and should have been upheld, because although race was considered in the impact the formulas would have, it was not a part of the actual rubrics or scoring for how funding would be rewarded.
“Ironically, the decision to rescind the allocation decision likely creates a greater risk of liability under Title VI for both the Arts Commission and Metro Legal than they would have faced had they proceeded with the grants decision on July 20,” said Fowler-Green.
In July, Metro Legal did not come to the same conclusion. After being notified by Metro Arts Commissioner Will Cheek of his concerns about the funding formula, Metro Legal sent a memo to the Metro Arts Commission with guidance on how race can be considered, citing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action.
Metro Legal then told the commission that it needed to vote on a new formula, but not before an executive session took place with Metro Legal representatives and Metro Arts commissioners. An executive session is a private meeting allowed in the Tennessee Open Meetings Act, but only under very limited circumstances. The report from the Metro Human Relations Commission calls into question whether that allowance was abused in this instance, and goes so far as to accuse Cheek of using the executive session to advocate for a revote.
“We believe that the role of Metro Legal was poorly articulated and potentially overstepped,” says Ashley Bachelder, director of policy and Research at MHRC. “What I mean by that is that the Arts Commission is the authorizing body of their policy decisions and Metro Legal is an adviser, but some of the quotes might lead me to believe that that boundary was overstepped or pushed.”
The MHRC voted unanimously to hold a public hearing over the discrimination allegations against the Metro Arts Commission. Meanwhile, an ongoing audit into Metro Arts’ finances is slated to conclude in the coming weeks, along with a Metro Legal investigation into the allegations levied by Metro Arts employees.
