Institutions reveal what they truly believe not through the values they proclaim, but through the choices they make when those values become inconvenient.
After George Floyd’s murder, the Metropolitan Museum of Art pledged itself to equity, accountability, inclusion and respect. It went further, fashionably adopting a 14-point policy addressing race and equality and promising to examine its culture and programming so that prejudice would find no refuge within its walls.
Now comes the test.
This year’s Met Gala, through the Costume Institute, reportedly features the work of fashion designer John Galliano in its marquee exhibition. Galliano is undeniably one of his generation’s most influential designers. He was also convicted in France after a drunken tirade in which he hurled antisemitic and racist abuse, declaring his love for Hitler and telling Jewish victims that their ancestors “would have been gassed.”
A French court found him guilty.
This is not about artistic brilliance, nor whether Galliano deserves personal forgiveness sixteen years later. It is about whether an institution that has made anti-racism central to its identity can celebrate a man whose public conduct embodied precisely the hatred it claims to oppose.
The Met may argue that it is honoring fashion, not the designer. That is a distinction without much difference.
The Costume Institute’s flagship exhibition is not a neutral archive. It is a celebration of fashion’s greatest achievements. Curators decide whose work deserves the world’s attention, and inclusion confers institutional recognition.
Imagine Galliano’s conviction involved screaming racist slurs at African Americans, praising slavery, or glorifying violence against Muslims, LGBTs or Asians. Would the Costume Institute feature him at its most prestigious exhibition? Would “artistic genius” be accepted as the answer?
The outrage would be immediate.
Yet when the hatred is directed at Jews, the standard appears to change. The conversation shifts from accountability to redemption, from institutional responsibility to artistic genius, from moral clarity to “nuance.”
Redemption is noble. Individuals who sincerely acknowledge wrongdoing and demonstrate genuine change deserve the opportunity to rebuild their lives. We call that “tshuva.” But forgiveness does not automatically entitle someone to institutional celebration.
The Met could acknowledge Galliano’s enormous influence without making his work a centerpiece of its signature event. It chose not to.
That choice carries meaning.
It risks telling Jewish visitors that antisemitism occupies a different place in the hierarchy of prejudice—that genocidal hatred of Jews can eventually become compatible with celebration at one of the world’s premier cultural institutions.
That is precisely the double standard the Met so eloquently promised to reject.
None of this requires erasing Galliano from fashion history. History should be preserved honestly, including its darkest chapters.
But there is a profound difference between documenting history and celebrating it.
At a time when antisemitism is surging worldwide, the Met had an opportunity to demonstrate that its 14-point policy and anti-racism commitments are universal.
Instead, it risks sending the opposite message: some hatred permanently disqualifies a person from celebration, while hatred of Jews can eventually be forgiven if accompanied by sufficient artistic genius.
That is not equality. It is a double standard.
John Galliano’s place in fashion history may be secure. His work should not occupy a place of celebration in the Metropolitan Museum’s most prestigious annual exhibition.
Anything less turns anti-racism from an enduring principle into a selective promise.
The author is an Israeli human rights attorney and President of the Shurat HaDin Law Center in Tel Aviv.