Zhuzh Up: Former Indian American Curator at Worcester Art Museum Sues Director, Supervisor for Discrimination

An Indian American curator is suing the Worcester Art Museum, accusing its director and the head of curatorial affairs of discrimination. In a lawsuit filed in the Worcester County Superior Court last month, Rachel Parikh alleges she was “mocked and ridiculed because she is a brown-skinned South Asian” woman, and was “subjected to a hostile and offensive work environment,” according to public radio station WBUR, that first reported the news last week. She resigned from her job as associate curator of the arts of Asia and the Islamic World last fall.

The 64-page civil lawsuit specifically names director Matthias Waschek, as well as Parikh’s supervisor, Claire Whitner. It also names four members of the board that oversees the museum as defendants, WBUR said.

The complaint alleges Parikh endured “racism and unwelcome and offensive behavior” on multiple occasions, both at work and outside of work at social gatherings. It describes Parikh as “an expert in South Asian and Islamic art with a focus on works on paper as well as arms and armor.” The daughter of parents who “emigrated to the U.S. from India in 1979,” she was born and raised in Chicago, the lawsuit says. She is “a native speaker of English, Hindi and Gujarati, with advanced proficiency in several languages including Spanish, Sanskrit, Arabic and French.”

The complaint further alleges that Parikh was chided on several occasions by Whitner, who was acting on Waschek’s request. Whitner allegedly told Parikh about a year after she was hired to “look the part of a curator,” and suggested she “zhuzh up” her look and “wear makeup, perhaps little earrings, a necklace, a ruffled blouse” to work, the complaint says.  The complaint notes  that“WAM’s employee handbook does not require curators to do any of the things that Whitner stated she and Waschek felt Parikh must do.”

Outside of work, the complaint includes incidents that occurred when Parikh had two meals with Waschek and his husband outside the museum. In the complaint and in an interview with WBUR, Parikh said “both men asked intrusive questions about her cultural heritage, referencing a ‘90s British television show that featured an Indian family.” More than once “the two white men imitated an Indian accent while discussing the show,” she alleges in the complaint. 

Parikh holds a Ph.D. in the history of art and architecture from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and previously worked at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Harvard Art Museums.

Additionally, the lawsuit also mentions that the museum hired LAM & Associates, an outside consultancy firm in May 2022 to investigate Parikh’s claims of harassment and retaliation. According to the final report, delivered in July, “the authors said its investigator, Laurie Margolies, could not substantiate Parikh’s claims with other colleagues, but found her statements credible.”

Parikh quit two months later, saying in her notice that the museum failed to uphold its own policies, according to the complaint. “I have been left no choice but to leave WAM due to the detrimental impact all of this is having on my emotional, mental, and physical health, as well as my well-being,” Parikh wrote. She told WBUR that the experiences  took her  “back to a place” where she was “a kid and being bullied for being brown.” So, she was “basically reliving the trauma” that she’s “been trying to work through as an adult,” bringing back “so much of the feelings of anger and hurt and disappointment.”

She told the radio station that she left the art she loved because she had lost faith in museum leadership. She “buried” herself in work, because she :really enjoyed” being a curator. “I made that commitment to my position and especially as a curator of Asian art or non-western art, to me championing that kind of material — in a western institution and in the United States — is incredibly important,” she said. “But the day-to-day was incredibly difficult, because I was constantly on edge. I was just waiting for a comment to be made or something to happen.”

Meanwhile, Madeline Feller, a museum spokesperson, said in a statement  sent to local media that the museum is aware of the lawsuit and “remains committed to providing a workplace where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.”

Parikh holds a Ph.D. in the history of art and architecture from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and previously worked at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Harvard Art Museums, according to the lawsuit. However, it alleges that when 

However, when Parikh was hired in 2020 by the museum, Whitner refused her request to hire her under the “associate” title because “it would not be ‘fair’ ” to a colleague the complaint describes as a “white woman” with the “assistant” title,” the complaint alleges. She accepted the job anyway, the complaint notes, saying she was “attracted to the museum’s unique and robust collection of medieval arms.” The museum also gave her “the opportunity to renovate its Asian art galleries, which she said had not been updated since the early ‘80s,” she says in the complaint. Parikh was promoted to associate curator in January of 2022. Later, other curators were hired with less experience and given the “associate” title, the complaint claims.

In addition to the lawsuit, Parikh also filed a claim with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in October of 2022. In response, a firm representing Waschek submitted a “position statement” in late January requesting that MCAD “reach a finding of Lack of Probable Cause,”WBUR said.