Advocacy & Public Policy Committee News Alerts v. 12 n. 8, August 2026

Advocacy & Public Policy Committee News support the committee's mission to monitor governmental activities and social justice issues affecting the professional interests of ARLIS/NA and to keep the ARLIS/NA membership informed. The monthly alerts are intended to be conversation starters, help members keep up on public policy issues and alert members to new developments. The articles compiled in the News Alerts bring to the forefront recent news from a range of perspectives designed to elicit discussion; they are not compiled to represent the views of ARLIS as an organization or the members of the Advocacy and Public Policy Committee.

Previous issues can be found here: https://www.arlisna.org/news/appc-news-alert 

Art & Activism

• Di Liscia, Valentina. “Angie Nixon, Champion of Black Art and Culture, Wins Florida Senate Primary in Upset.” Hyperallergic, August 19, 2026. 

• Lee, Anna. “Drawings by Children in Texas ICE Facility Are a Cry for Help.” Hyperallergic, August 5, 2026. 

• Levine-Kennedy, Amy. “How AIDS Activists Turned Graphic Design Into a Weapon.” Hyperallergic, August 24, 2026. 

• Nayyar, Rhea. “Ex-Pussy Riot Member Says She Was Recruited by Russia to Spy on Artists.” Hyperallergic, August 26, 2026. 

• Nayyar, Rhea. “Jeffrey Epstein Dons Meta AI Glasses in Damning Guerrilla Ad.” Hyperallergic, August 10, 2026. 

• Nayyar, Rhea. “New Digital Archive Honors Gaza Journalists Killed by Israel.” Hyperallergic, August 14, 2026. 

Copyright & Licensing; Open Access

• Klee, Miles. “He Scraped All of Their Art for AI. Now He’s Collaborating on a Tool to Help Them.” Tags. Wired, August 28, 2026. [paywall]

• Lee, Anna “Artist Elizabeth Peyton Sued Over Painting of Oasis Brothers.” Hyperallergic, August 26, 2026.

• Moss, Aaron. “Inside the Strange Copyright Fight Over America's Most Famous Home Movie.” CopyrightLately, August 10, 2026.  

Funding 

• Lee, Anna. “Art Orgs That Received More COVID-Era Funding Outperforming Others, Study Finds.” Hyperallergic, August 5, 2026. 

• Lee, Anna. “NYC Arts Nonprofits Benefit from Mamdani’s $8.4 Million in Grants.” Hyperallergic, August 24, 2026. 

• Lee, Anna. “Rice University Extends Free Tuition to Families Earning Up to $200K.” Hyperallergic, August 4, 2026.

• Lee, Anna. “School of Visual Arts Faculty ‘Blindsided’ by Course Cuts Amid $22M Deficit.” Hyperallergic, August 18, 2026. 

• Pyle, Phillip. “SF Camerawork, Photo Champion for Five Decades, Abruptly Announces Closure.” Hyperallergic, August 12, 2026. 

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access (IDEA) 

• “111 Works from Canada’s Federal Indigenous Art Collection Remain Missing.” Artforum, August 25, 2026. 

• “Repatriated Skull To Be Displayed in Community Museum in Oaxaca.” Artforum, August 18, 2026. 

• Lawson-Tancred, Jo. “London’s National Gallery Convened a Citizens Assembly to Help Chart Its Future. It Made People Mad.” Artnet News, August 5, 2026. 

• Lee, Anna. “Former Philly UArts Building to Become Affordable Housing for Artists.” Hyperallergic, August 13, 2026.

• Lee, Anna. “Speed Art Museum Returns 24 Native Artifacts to Oklahoma Tribes.” Hyperallergic, August 19, 2026.

• Yip, Randall. “Community Rallies to Stop Closure of National Archives Facility.” AsAmNews, August 24, 2026. 

Intellectual Freedom/Access to Information

• American Alliance of Museums. “How Museums Can Resist Censorship.” Center for the Future of Museums Blog, August 3, 2026. 

• Cieslik, Emma. “16 Arrested for Showing Portraits of People Killed by ICE in DC Senate Building.” Hyperallergic, August 6, 2026. 

• Lee, Anna. “Taiwanese Artists Accuse South Korea’s Gwangju Biennale of Censorship.” Hyperallergic, August 18, 2026. 

• Nayyar, Rhea. “Hundreds Demand Reinstatement of SAIC Professor Savneet Talwar.” Hyperallergic, August 5, 2026. 

• Nayyar, Rhea. “US State Department Takes Down ‘Woke’ Kehinde Wiley Painting.” Hyperallergic, August 25, 2026. 

• Peet, Lisa. “Appeals Court Reverses Lower Court Injunction, Allows Arkansas Act 372 to Take Effect.” Library Journal, August 5, 2026. 

• Peet, Lisa. “Calling on Advocates to Respond to FCC’s Proposed Throttling of E-Rate.” Library Journal, August 20, 2026. 

• Small, Zachary. “National Gallery Accused of ‘Soft Censorship’ to Avoid Provoking Trump.” The New York Times, August 10, 2026. [paywall]

Technology and Digital Privacy 

• Enis, Matt. “Vast Majority of College Students Now Using AI with Assignments.” Library Journal, August 19, 2026.

• Marlow, Chad. “Despite 'New' Updates, Flock's Creepy Cameras Remain Major Civil Liberties Threat.” ACLU, August 13, 2026.

• Mendez, Malia. “Spotify Will Label A.I. Artists and Avoid Promoting Them.” The New York Times, August 11, 2026. [paywall]

• “Meta Reaches $18 Billion Settlement with States over Youth Social Media Harms.” Electronic Privacy Information Center, August 26, 2026.

• Perez, Sarah. “Buried in Meta's $18B settlement is a legal pass on kids' data.” TechCrunch, August 27, 2026.

• “Senate Commerce Committee Advances Youth AI Privacy Act.” Electronic Privacy Information Center, August 5, 2026. 

• Stanley, Jay. “Beware of Other License Plate Surveillance Companies Besides Flock.” ACLU, August 25, 2026.

• Stokel-Walker, Chris. “AI Crawlers from Meta and Alibaba Almost Destroyed a Volunteer-Run LGBT History Archive.” Fast Company, August 13, 2026.

Workplace 

• Lee, Anna. “Cooling System Malfunction Shutters Seven Smithsonian Museums.” Hyperallergic, August 6, 2026. 

• Lee, Anna. “Eric Carle Museum Workers Push for Union Vote.” Hyperallergic, August 3, 2026. 

• Lee, Anna. ”San Diego Museum of Art Lays Off 11 Workers.” Hyperallergic, August 11, 2026.

• Solomon, Tessa. “LACMA Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Data Breach of Employee, Visitor Information.” ARTnews, August 26, 2026. 

Miscellaneous 

• “ALA UN Delegation elevates libraries at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum 2026.” American Library Association, August 7, 2026. 

• Cope, Sophia. “Ninth Circuit Ruling Will Force Online Platforms That Host User Speech to Fight Lengthy and Costly Lawsuits Before They Are Dismissed Under Section 230.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 18, 2026. 

• Manalili, Sonia, and Margaret Carrigan. “What Is the Value of a Museum?” Artnet News, August 31, 2026. 

• Nayyar, Rhea. “MIT Students Can Now Borrow Works by Jennie C. Jones and Nayland Blake.” Hyperallergic, August 19, 2026. 

• Risen, Clay. “Thomas S. Hines, Who Helped Put L.A. Architecture on the Map, Dies at 89.” The New York Times, August 7, 2026. [paywall]

Special News Alert: 47th Presidential Administration and Cultural Heritage

• Boucher, Brian. “Trump Threatens to Demolish Kennedy Center if He Can’t Close It for Renovations.” ARTnews, August 25, 2026. 

• Di Liscia, Valentina and Rhea Nayyar. Trump Proposes Lowest Smithsonian Budget in Years.” Hyperallergic. August 4, 2026.

• Lee, Anna. “Could This New Legislation Protect Historic Sites From Trump’s Wrath?” Hyperallergic, August 7, 2026. 

• Lee, Anna. “National Gallery of Art Protects Works Ahead of Trump’s IndyCar Race.” Hyperallergic, August 10, 2026.

• Nayyar, Rhea. “Amid Trump’s Threats, a Potential Home for Smithsonian Latino Museum.” Hyperallergic, August 24, 2026. 

• Qin, Amy, and Flávio Pessoa. “Trump 2.0 Has Deleted or Altered Nearly 400 US Datasets, Endangering Public Health, Education and More.” The Guardian, August 18, 2026.

• “Section 106 Rulemaking Enters Next Phase.” The National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, August 6, 2026.  

• Solomon, Tessa. “Emergency Appeal Asks Federal Court to Keep Trump’s Name Off Kennedy Center.” ARTnews, August 21, 2026.

• “Watchdogs, Historians Urge Appeals Court to Uphold Order Blocking Trump’s Evasion of Presidential Records Act.” American Oversight, August 19, 2026. 

This issue of News Alerts was compiled by Caroline Clavell, Torie Quiñonez, Madison Sussman, and Sarah Wade.