Nancy Yao is Out as Smithsonian Women’s History Museum Director Following Reports of Mishandled Scandals

Nancy Yao has stepped down from her role as founding director of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum following allegations that she had mishandled several scandals during her tenure as head of New York’s Museum of Chinese in America, commonly known as MOCA.

Melanie Adams, the director of the Anacostia Community Museum, will serve as interim director, the Smithsonian said in a statement. The current interim director, Lisa Sasaki, will be transferred to an undisclosed Smithsonian leadership position. The search for a new permanent director has restarted.

In a statement sent to The Washington Post on Wednesday, the Smithsonian said that Yao stepped down “due to family issues that require her attention.” Her tenure at the Smithsonian was set to begin in June, however the decision was re-evaluted after a Post investigation in April detailed a toxic workplace environment she helmed—and by some accounts, directly facilitated—in her near-decade as president of MOCA. According to the report, the museum settled three wrongful-termination lawsuits filed by former employees who claimed to have been fired in retaliation for reporting the alleged sexual harassment of younger female colleagues.

Two men named in the lawsuits kept their jobs, while one was subsequently promoted by Yao, who vehemently denied the allegations of retaliation. The cases were reportedly settled on terms that did not imply wrongdoing on MOCA’s part. 

In a press release issued at the time of her appointment, the Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III lauded Yao’s leadership. “Nancy’s proven experience, skill and leadership will be crucial in bringing to life the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum and enabling it to creatively tell a more robust and complete story about who we are as a nation,” he said.

In 2020, Yao earned praise from the museum leaders nationwide for overseeing laborious efforts to salvage thousands of artifacts damaged in a fire at at MOCA’s Collections and Research Center. Yao, however, has a more contentious relationship with members of New York’s Chinatown community, some of whom accused her of accepting grant money from the administration of then-New York Mayor Bill de Blasio allegedly in exchange for her support of the construction of a prison in the neighborhood. Yao denied the allegations.

Additionally, local activists protested that MOCA’s co-chair, the landlord Jonathan Chu, had initiated the relocation of a beloved Chinatown restaurant that had struggled to pay its rent during the coronavirus pandemic, a period that saw a rise in anti-Chinese sentiment worldwide. In 2021, 19 members of an arts collective pulled their work from the museum in protest and demanded Yao’s resignation.

Yao told The Post via text that “any allegations can be made without proof,” and disparaged sources who “collude, muck rake, and falsify” and called the settlements “nuisance agreements.” 

She added that the firings were due to “severe budget pressures.”

MOCA has not responded to an ARTnews request for comment.