The Pulitzer Prize winner is refusing to accept her award next month from the New York museum that fired three employees for wearing a Palestine solidarity badge.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri refused to accept an award from New York’s Noguchi Museum after it fired three employees who wore keffiyeh scarves, an emblem of Palestinian solidarity.
The museum, founded nearly 40 years ago by Japanese-American designer and sculptor Isamu Noguchi, announced in August that employees could not wear clothing or accessories expressing “political messages, slogans or symbols” during working hours.
“Jhumpa Lahiri has chosen to withdraw her acceptance of the 2024 Isamu Noguchi Prize in response to our updated dress code policy,” the museum said in a statement Wednesday. “We respect her perspective and understand that this policy may or may not reflect everyone’s views.”
The New York Times was the first to report the news.
Amy Hau, the museum’s director, said in a separate statement on its website that the policy “aims to prevent unintended alienation of our diverse visitors, while allowing us to remain focused on our core mission of advancing the understanding and appreciation of the art and legacy of Isamu Noguchi.”
Around the world, protesters demanding an end to Israel’s war on Gaza wear the black and white keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian self-determination. South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela has also been seen wearing the headscarf on numerous occasions.
Israel’s supporters say this constitutes support for extremism.
Attacked for wearing a keffiyeh
In November, three students of Palestinian origin were shot dead in the US state of Vermont. Two of them were wearing keffiyehs.
In May, a New York hospital fired a Palestinian-American nurse after she called Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide” during an awards speech. Israel denies South Africa’s genocide allegations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
According to the NYT, Lahiri and Lee Ufan, a Korean-born minimalist painter, sculptor and poet, were scheduled to receive the Isamu Noguchi Prize at the museum’s charity gala next month. Ufan is still expected to receive the award, the museum said.
Lahiri, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for his book, Interpreter of Maladies, was one of thousands of academics who signed a letter in May to university presidents in the United States expressing solidarity with campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, calling it “indescribable destruction.”