Lynn Orr, the former curator of European art at San Francisco’s Fine Art Museums, is suing the institution for illegally dismissing her. Orr claims she was let go for supporting a union demonstration and protesting financial deception. Orr has worked for the museums for 29 years and served as a curator for 11 years until her firing on November 20, 2013.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 in San Francisco superior court. In her claim, Orr stated that the museums’ human resources director told her that she was being dismissed because of her performance but she had never been confronted about her work in the past. Orr did say that museum officials criticized her attendance at a demonstration held on September 7, 2013 at San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Museum, which was organized to oppose the museums’ management’s stance in labor negotiations.
Orr’s lawsuit also touched on an incident during which she and other employees claimed that the museums were undervaluing a painting that was to be shipped overseas, which she considered to be deceitful. A fellow employee who objected to the situation was fired within a few months of the incident. Orr is seeking unspecified damages from the city of San Francisco and the private corporation that runs the museums.
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the modern-leaning M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the neoclassical California Palace of the Legion of Honor, has been involved in a number of recent uproars. The tumult has included tense labor negotiations, firings of senior staff member such as Orr, and scathing criticism of the museums board’s president, Diane Wilsey.
