Focus on The Dinner Party and analyze the Controversy at the University of the District of Columbia.
In 1990, The Dinner Party was considered for permanent housing at the University of the District of Columbia. It was part of a plan to bring in revenue for the school, as it had proved to be very successful. The work was to be donated as a gift to the school, and it was to join an expanding collection of African-American art, including a large group of paintings by Washington abstractionist Sam Gilliam and works by Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, Alma Thomas, Hale Woodruff, Jacob Lawrence and Lois Mailou Jones, among others.  These – along with works by a group of local white Color Field painters and some white UDC faculty members also in the university collections – were to become the core of what was presented in early 1990 as a ground-breaking multicultural art center, a hopeful coalition between artists of color, feminists and other artists depicting the struggle for freedom and human equality.Judy Chicago donated The Dinner Party with the understanding that one of the school's buildings would be repaired to house it. The money for these repairs had already been allocated and did not come from the school's working budget. On June 19, 1990, UDC trustees formally accepted the gift of The Dinner Party by unanimous vote. Soon, however, reporters from the right-wing Washington Times began writing stories that claimed that The Dinner Party "had been banned from several art galleries around the country because it depicts women's genitalia on plates" and that the "Board of Trustees will spend nearly $1.6 million to acquire and exhibit a piece of controversial art." Misunderstandings about the monetary situation were emphasized and perpetuated by media sources. Eventually, the plans were cancelled owing to concerns that the collection would negatively affect the school's working budget.
Elizabeth Catlett University of the District of Columbia Sam Gilliam Jacob Lawrence Lois Mailou Jones Romare Bearden Hale Woodruff Judy Chicago Washington Times Alma Thomas