Washington: Several members of United States President Donald Trump's Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH) have announced their resignation due to President's remarks on Charlottesville violence.

A letter signed by 16 of 17 committee members, including Actor Kal Penn, artist Chuck Close, cited the "false equivalence" of President Donald Trump's comments about last weekend's "Unite the Right" gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump has blamed "many sides" for the demonstrations that left an anti-racism activist dead.

"Dear @realDonaldTrump, attached is our letter of resignation from the President's Committee on the Arts & the Humanities @PCAH_gov," Kal Penn tweeted along with the picture of the letter.

As per The Hill report, the first letter of each paragraph in the letter spells out "resist," a reference to liberal efforts to counter Trump's agenda.

"Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville," it reads.

"The Administration's refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. ... Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed."

"Elevating any group that threatens and discriminates on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, orientation, background, or identity is un-American," the letter states.

"The false equivalencies you push cannot stand," the letter says.

"We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions."

The letter continues that art is about "inclusion" and a free press and mentions that Trump has "attacked both."

"Speaking truth to power is never easy, Mr. President," the letter reads. "But it is our role as commissioners on the PCAH to do so."

The move comes after at least a dozen CEOs of prominent companies left several of Trump's advisory councils in the past week over his comments on the Charlottesville rally, during which one died and 19 more were injured when a car drove into a group of counter protesters.

Trump has dissolved two of the advisory panels this week as they were falling apart.

Trump received widespread criticism for failing to specifically rebuke white nationalists for violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.</s>Every private member of the U.S. presidential advisory committee on the arts has resigned to protest President Donald Trump’s response to white nationalist violence in Virginia.

Seventeen members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities said in a resignation letter Friday, “The false equivalencies you push cannot stand.”

The letter was in response to Trump’s comments Tuesday that “both sides” were to blame for the violence at last Saturday’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Three people died in connection with the rally, and 19 others were injured.

James Fields Jr. was charged with several felonies, including second-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer. He allegedly used his car to run over a group of protesters.

The arts committee is an advisory body on cultural issues composed of 12 federal agency heads and 17 scholars and artists. The members who resigned included actor Kal Penn, artist Chuck Close, and author Jhumpa Lahiri.

“The administration’s refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill,” the letter reads.

“Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions,” it said. “Supremacy, discrimination and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values.”

The advisory panel was created by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1982. All of the current private members had been appointed by former President Barack Obama.

The resignations followed the disbanding of two presidential business advisory councils Wednesday after most of their members left in protest against Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville.</s>After the backlash against his comments about the Charlottesville riots, US president Donald Trump this week closed down two of his CEO-packed advisory bodies—the manufacturing council and “strategic and policy forum”— and scrapped plans for a third, dealing with infrastructure. And now the members of a fourth body, the committee on the arts and the humanities, have resigned in unison.

The council, whose honorary chair is first lady Melania Trump, comprises personalities and intellectuals including actor Kal Penn, author Jhumpa Lahiri, artist Chuck Close, and journalist Richard Cohen. They announced their resignation through a strongly worded letter condemning the White House’s handling of white supremacy: “We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions,” it reads.

But that wasn’t the final indignity. The letter also contains a hidden message. The first letter of each paragraph is part of an acrostic of the word “resist.”

Evidently, they aren’t the arts council for nothing.</s>Actor Kal Penn was one of 17 members of the Presidential Committee on Arts & Humanities who resigned under President Donald Trump in response to his comments about race in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., last week. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Members of an Obama-era presidential arts advisory committee resigned their service under President Donald Trump on Friday in response to his comments about racial violence in Charlottesville, Va.

The 17-member Presidential Committee on Arts & Humanities made the unanimous announcement. The group included actor Kal Penn, artist Chuck Close and lawyer Vicki Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, among others.

Penn published a letter on behalf of the panel on his Twitter page Friday.

The group had not formally met since Trump took office in January, but had continued its advocacy work under his administration.

In the wake of the racially motivated violence in Charlottesville last week, Trump twice stated people on "many sides" were to blame. The remarks prompted an outcry from both Republicans and Democrats who said Trump had likened anti-racist counter protesters, one of whom was killed, with members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo Nazis and other hate groups that descended on Charlottesville for a "Unite the Right" rally.

"The false equivalencies you push cannot stand," the committee members wrote. "We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions."

The resignations come on the heels of Trump's decision to disband advisory panels of CEOs and other business leaders after members expressed misgivings about the administration's response to the Charlottesville violence.

RELATED Civil rights commission slams Trump transgender military ban

In response, the White House released a statement saying Trump had already intended to disband the arts committee after its charter expired later this year. The statement said the panel was "not a responsible way to spend American tax dollars."</s>Actors and prominent arts figures in the US have resigned from an advisory committee to the White House following President Donald Trump’s reaction to deadly white supremacist violence last weekend in Charlottesville.

In a joint letter addressed to Trump, members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH) condemned the president’s insistence in equating the actions of both white supremacists and those protesting against them during the far-right rally on August 12.

A 32-year-old anti-racist protester, Heather Heyer, was killed and several people were wounded in a car ramming attack.

“Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorist who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville,” said the letter, which was signed by all members but one of the 17-person committee. “The false equivalencies you push cannot stand.”

Actor Kal Penn, photographer Chuck Close, author Jhumpa Lahiri and Jill Cooper Udal, wife of Senator Tom Undall were among those who signed the resignation letter.

“We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions,” the members wrote.

The PCAH is an official agency which comprises prominent Hollywood, Broadway and others arts figures.

It works directly with the government and three primary cultural agencies.

As first lady, Melania Trump serves as the committee’s honorary chair.

Director and Tony Award winner George C. Wolfe was the only member who did not sign the missive.

“Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions,” the letter went on to say.

The members also criticised Trump for proposing to cut funding for arts and cultural agencies.

With the letter, the PCAH became the first White House department to resign.

Several people on social media noted a possible hidden message in the note – the first letter of each paragraph of the correspondence, when put together, spells “RESIST”.

Most of the members of the group were appointed under Barack Obama’s presidency.

The committee was created in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan to advise White House on cultural issues.</s>All but one of the members of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned on Friday in response to Donald Trump's comments on the violence that erupted at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The 16 resigning members of the committee, including actor Kal Penn and artist Chuck Close, were selected by former President Barack Obama during his term and held on to their positions when Trump came into office.

Penn announced that the remaining committee members were resigning in a letter he shared on Twitter. The first letter of each paragraph spells out 'RESIST' - potentially referring to the ongoing 'resistance' movement among Democrats.

'Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions,' they wrote in the letter. 'We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'

First Lady Melania Trump is the honorary chair of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

Members who have signed the letter include: Penn, Close, Paula Boggs, Richard Cohen, Fred Goldring, Howard L. Gottlieb, Vicki Kennedy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anne Luzzatto, Thom Mayne, Eric Ortner, Ken Solomon, Caroline Taylor, Jill Cooper Udall, Andrew Weinstein, and John Lloyd Young​.

The only member not signing was Broadway director George C Wolfe. Representatives for Wolfe at Creative Arts Agency did not have any immediate comment on whether he had resigned.

A number of committee members quit after Trump was elected president in November 2016, and those who remained were all appointed by Obama.

They had agreed to remain on the committee until Trump named their replacements, and eight months into his presidency, he had not done so.

Their letter on Friday said: 'Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.'

A day earlier, Trump has abandoned plans to create an infrastructure advisory council, the White House said on Thursday, the day after two other advisory groups were dismantled over the furor caused by Trump's remarks on white supremacists.

'The President's Advisory Council on Infrastructure, which was still being formed, will not move forward,' a White House official said.

On Wednesday, Trump disbanded two high-profile advisory groups after several chief executives quit in protest over his remarks blaming violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend on anti-racism activists as well as white nationalists.

Trump said he dissolved the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum 'rather than putting pressure' on its members, although both groups were preparing to disband on their own when Trump made his announcement on Twitter.

The snubs from chief executives raised questions about Trump's ability to marshal the business community behind his policy goals.

Trump blamed white nationalists and counter-protesters in equal measure for the weekend clashes that left one woman dead.

The president accused the protesters, who rallied against neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups in Charlottesville, of being 'very, very violent'.

Trump's assessment that there was 'blame on both sides' for the deadly melee sparked a rare comment on current affairs from his two Republican predecessors, George Bush and George W Bush, who called on Americans to 'reject racial bigotry... in all its forms'.

Trump's defiant statements, delivered on Tuesday at Trump Tower and immediately hailed by a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan for their 'courage', left many lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike, speechless.

The arts and humanities committee was established in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

FULL LETTER TO TRUMP FROM THE PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON THE ARTS AND THE HUMANITIES 'Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville. The false equivalencies you push cannot stand. 'The Administration’s refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions. 'We are members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). The Committee was created in 1982 under President Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues. 'We were hopeful that continuing to serve in the PCAH would allow us to focus on the important work the committee does with your federal partners and the private sector to address, initiate, and support key policies and programs in the arts and humanities for all Americans. 'Effective immediately, please accept our resignation from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. 'Elevating any group that threatens and discriminates on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, orientation, background, or identity is un-American. 'We have fought slavery, segregation, and internment. We must learn from our rich and often painful history. The unified fabric of America is made by patriotic individuals from backgrounds as vast as the nation is strong. 'In our service to the American people, we have experienced this first-hand as we traveled and built the Turnaround Arts education program, now in many urban and rural schools across the country from Florida to Wisconsin. 'Speaking truth to power is never easy, Mr. President. But it is our role as commissioners on the PCAH to do so. Art is about inclusion. The Humanities include a vibrant free press. You have attacked both. 'You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding. 'The Administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Act, and attacked our brave trans service members. 'You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country. This does not unify the nation we all love. 'We know the importance of open and free dialogue through our work in the cultural diplomacy realm, most recently with the first-ever US Government arts and culture delegation to Cuba, a country without the same First Amendment protections we enjoy here. 'Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed. '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. 'Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.' The letter is signed by Paula Boggs, Chuck Close, Richard Cohen, Fred Goldring, Howard L Gottlieb, Vicki Kennedy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anne Luzzatto, Thom Mayne, Klapen Modi (Kal Penn), Eric Ortner, Ken Solomon, Caroline Taylor, Jill Cooper Udall, Andrew Weinstein and John Lloyd Young.</s>Actor Kal Penn, artist Chuck Close and the entire membership of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities have announced their resignation. A letter dated Friday, and signed by 16 of 17 committee members, cited the “false equivalence” of President Donald Trump’s comments about last weekend’s “Unite the Right” gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump has blamed “many sides” for the demonstrations that left an anti-racism activist dead.

The White House said Trump had already decided against renewing the advisory committee for budgetary reasons.

“Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions,” the letter reads. “Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.”

The only member whose name did not appear was Broadway director George C. Wolfe. Representatives for Wolfe at Creative Arts Agency said Friday that he was also resigning and that his name would be added to the letter, which seemed to contain a hidden political message beyond the ones stated openly. The first initials of the letter’s six main paragraphs spell out “r-e-s-i-s-t.”

“Earlier this month it was decided that President Trump will not renew the executive order for the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), which expires later this year,” the White House said in a statement attributed to an unnamed spokesperson. “While the committee has done good work in the past, in its current form it simply is not a responsible way to spend American tax dollars.”

The statement said the committee “merely redirects funding” from federal cultural agencies that report directly to the president, Congress and taxpayers.

“These cultural agencies do tremendous work and they will continue to engage in these important projects,” the statement said.

Earlier this week, two business advisory councils were disbanded as members left in protest.

Friday’s exodus heightened the arts world’s contentious relationship with Trump. The president struggled to find entertainers, many of whom backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, to perform at his inaugural gala, and Kennedy Center honorees for lifetime achievement have already said they will not attend the White House reception in December.

As president, Trump has also recommended defunding the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities.

The arts and humanities committee was established in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan and, with the first lady serving as honorary chair, works with both government and private agencies in promoting the arts through such programs as Turnaround Arts and Save America’s Treasures. Others signing the resignation letter included Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri; and Vicki Kennedy, widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. All were appointed by President Barack Obama.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form</s>Another advisory group is walking away from President Donald Trump after his equivocation on neo-Nazis and white supremacists, with the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigning en masse Friday morning.

“We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions,” members write in a joint letter to Trump obtained by POLITICO, which ends by calling on the president to resign if he does not see a problem with what’s happened this week.

The group works with American educators and leads cultural delegations to other countries. Members include artist Chuck Close, actor Kal Penn, author Jhumpa Lahiri and Vicki Kennedy.

“Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions,” the letter goes on.

As first lady, Melania Trump serves as the Committee's honorary chair.

Executives fleeing Trump’s Manufacturing Jobs Initiative and Strategy & Policy Forum led the president to announce on Wednesday, after the fact, that he was ending them anyway. Thursday, he announced the disbanding of the Infrastructure council.

Unlike those groups, the PCAH is an official agency. That makes this the first White House department to resign.

The PCAH letter details a case against Trump that goes deeper than other recent comments.

“You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding. The administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Act and attacked our brave trans service members. You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country,” the members write. “This does not unify the nation we all love.”

Citing the contrast between America and Cuba, where the group recently led a delegation, the letter says that Trump is eating away at American values.

“Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed,” the letter states.

The 17-member committee was appointed by President Barack Obama and hasn't met under Trump, but it has continued work on some of its programs. Internal discussions throughout the week among its members led to the decision behind Friday's letter.

“Our job is to help protect those who teach America’s story through art and through a free press," said Eric Ortner, a talent manager, producer and manager who signed the letter. Ortner, a former chair of the White House Entertainment Advisory Committee, added: "I wanted to make sure that we were on the right side of American history."</s>Update (4:55 p.m.): The White House has responded to the committee’s decision to resign, stating that “earlier this month it was decided that President Trump will not renew the Executive Order for the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), which expires later this year,” according to a statement released to the New York Times. The statement continues, noting that the committee “has done good work in the past” but is currently “not a responsible way to spend American tax dollars.”

Kal Penn responded to the statement on Twitter, writing: “Lol @realDonaldTrump you can't break up with us after we broke up with you LMFAO.”

On Friday morning, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities made the startling decision to resign from Donald Trump’s committee all at once. In a joint statement, all of its members—including author Jhumpa Lahiri, artist Chuck Close, actor Kal Penn, and more—explained in very specific terms why they no longer felt comfortable serving the president in the wake of his inflammatory remarks about the Charlottesville tragedy.

“Speaking truth to power is never easy, Mr. President . . . art is about inclusion. The humanities include a vibrant free press. You have attacked both,” the letter reads. “You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding. . . . Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed.”

The committee, devised in 1982 under the Ronald Reagan administration, was initially created to advise the White House on cultural issues. However, that mission has become extraordinarily difficult under the Trump administration, Penn tells Vanity Fair. Now that the group members have resigned, they will focus on protecting programs that were initially created by the committee—such as Turnaround Arts, an initiative that provides arts education to schools across the country, in partnership with the Kennedy Center, as well as Americans for the Arts, which provides arts funding to numerous schools. In addition, members will also continue to uphold the cultural exchange program with Cuba that began in 2016.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Penn explains how the group decided to resign together and how it plans to resist the current administration. (Representatives for the White House have not yet responded to _V.F.’_s request for comment, but we will update if and once they do.)

Vanity Fair: This is a really extraordinary measure, but I think there are some people who might be surprised this didn’t happen earlier. Why now?

Kal Penn: The president’s committee has twice the members that you see on the letter. Half of them made the decision to resign just before the inauguration. The rest of us felt that because we were appointed to a committee that does not term out—our terms don’t automatically expire with the changing administration—that our roles are nonpartisan. We’re there to serve the existing programs that were created in terms of arts education and cultural diplomacy. And that would still be an opportunity to serve the American people. Over time, there obviously were things that bothered us.

It became clear that the government became inoperative under this particular presidency. A lot of the work and the agencies have been frozen. There’s a big waste of taxpayer dollars. We had hope, but the president made comments that quite literally were in support of the domestic terrorists.

It’s one thing to say you want to serve the programs you were appointed to serve, regardless of politics, but after a certain point . . . we just don’t want our names attached to this in any way.

What was the process of deciding to resign as a group?

It was an e-mail chain. . . . There were a lot of text chains (laughs). A few of us were thinking of resigning; we were just curious to check in with everybody else to see if everybody was feeling the same way. It turned out that we all did.

I think we all felt very strongly that we’re not resigning for a news cycle [or] anything like that. This is a particularly disturbing moment in American history. It has to be the kind of letter that we’re O.K. with showing our grandkids. These committees exist to advise the White House on cultural issues, and it is the role of artists to spark conversation.

The letter ends on a line saying that if Trump doesn’t raise his values, he should resign as well. Whose idea was it to include that line, and was there any hesitation?

I don’t think there was hesitation. I would have to go back on the emails to see which individuals actually suggested it, but no . . . none of this behavior is presidential. We did take an oath of office before we became part of the committee, so we just felt that it was in the realm of what we were asked to do, to also say that.

The first letter of each paragraph spells “Resist.” Whose idea was that?

We are artists, and I feel like that almost speaks for itself in a way. I had floated it to a few members . . . this is a nice little nod to a lot of folks who are curious about those of us who still continued to serve on the board.

Melania Trump is the honorary chair of this committee. What was it like, trying to actually interact with this presidency in these last few months?

We found it incredibly difficult, and it seems that that was on purpose. We had not, at least as far as I know, heard from the White House directly, which is a big departure from the previous White House, and, from what I understand, the Bush White House as well. . . . There was no support and no interaction with the White House.

I guess that kind of voids my next question: you just resigned, but has anyone in the White House reached out since you did?

No, but I imagine when you resign, I don’t think you usually get a response (laughs). Our letter was pretty final.

It’s surprising that there was no effort made on behalf of the First Lady’s office or anyone in the White House to reach out to the President’s Committee at some point, but in a way, it’s also not surprising. You look at the president’s fiscal 2018 budget: under the National Endowment for the Arts, there’s zero dollars. Under the National Endowment for the Humanities, there’s zero dollars. You can have someone like Ivanka Trump talk all she wants about the importance of programs for young people, but when she is a senior adviser and her administration’s budget has zero dollars next to those things, it’s not surprising that the First Lady isn’t reaching out.

Are you anticipating a Trump tweet about this?

We have no idea what’s important to him and what’s not, so who knows. We decided to craft a letter based on the very serious nature of what’s happening right now. We did not want to be complicit in any way, shape, or form. I think our letter speaks for itself.

This interview has been edited and condensed.
All 17 members of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, including actor Kal Penn and artist Chuck Close, resign.