The 17 members of President Donald Trump’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigned Friday morning in response to Trump’s reaction to the violence and protests in Charlottesville, which have included the equivocation of the white supremacists to counter-protesters, as well as Robert E. Lee to George Washington.
“We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions,” the members wrote in a joint letter to the President. “Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions. We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”