The April 17 announcement that the Rose Art Museum will reopen July 22 and will exhibit part of its permanent collection in order to allow the Committee on the Future of the Rose more time to deliberate was a turning point in the Rose debacle because it significantly elevated the doubt of many invested in the Rose story with regard to the committee and its lack of influence over the museum's artwork collection.Prior to the April 17 announcement, many were willing to wait for the Committee on the Future of the Rose's report. Now, however, as a result of the announcement and the suspicions that have resulted from it, those same people who may have been willing to wait now imply that the committee was never given a fair chance to begin with and has been set up to fail from the start.

"I personally don't recognize you as a legitimate committee," Rose Art Director Michael Rush said to committee members at the Future of the Rose Committee Town Hall Meeting last week. "The mantra about the collection is that it is in the hands of the Board of Trustees. You are the future of the Rose but can't discuss the collection of the Rose. How does that give you validity if you cannot discuss the future of the museum?"

The text of Krauss' e-mail read: "In order to allow its members sufficient time for careful exploration, analysis, and deliberation, the Committee for the Future of the Rose requested that I clarify the plans the University has made for staffing and programming at the Rose following June 30, 2009."

The announcement has generated a stir in the community. While the announcement explicitly says that the committee requested that Krauss clarify the University's staffing and programming plans, Jonathan Lee, chair of the Rose Art Museum board of overseers, sent an e-mail that was posted on a blog on Time magazine's Web site alleging that the office of the Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley was the impetus behind the announcement.

In response to Lee's e-mail to the Board, Krauss said, "There has been a lot of misinformation going around, which is unfortunate, but I'm not in a position to counter it right now."

However, Meyer Koplow, a member of the University Board of Trustees, said at the April 21 Future of the Rose Committee Town Hall Meeting that the "attorney general's office has not instructed Brandeis what to do. There has not been the slightest suggestion that the attorney general's office has any intention of bringing action against the University," he said.

Emily La Grassa, communications director for the attorney general, declined to comment on "why [the administration] felt it was appropriate to send the letter. . Our office has been in regular communication with the University and the Board over the past several months since plans about the Rose were announced," she said.

Krauss' April 17 e-mail also states that the University offered continued employment to four of the six current Rose employees, but not to Rose Director Michael Rush or Jay Knox, the current administrator of the museum, according to Lee.

Some are very skeptical of the committee's contributing role in the University's decision regarding the Rose.

"I don't think the committee has the power to really do anything apart from spending time until the University does what they're planning to do," Meryl Rose, a spokeswoman for the Rose family and a Rose Museum board member, said at the town hall meeting.

In fact, the art collection and staffing decisions do not even fall under the purview of the committee. The official charge of the committee states that "the Committee will operate with the understanding that the Board of Trustees, as part of its fiduciary responsibility for Brandeis University, will determine whether or not to sell works of art from the Rose." As University President Jehuda Reinharz explained at the Jan. 29 faculty meeting, "If the museum is not closed, we cannot sell the art." But as Michael Rush suggested, a committee created to make recommendations to the administration that is not permitted to make any recommendations about the art collection, has limited legitimacy, as it is unable to discuss arguably the most important factor the University has to evaluate when deciding whether to keep the museum open.

There are some people who recognize that the committee members were put in a difficult position. In an April 24 e-mail to the Justice, Prof. Ellen Schattschneider (ANTH) wrote, "I have many friends and colleagues on the Committee and believe they are all making a good faith effort. But I believe that the Committee has been handed an ill conceived charge, that severely limits its effectiveness. . What is a museum other than a collection and its staff? Are they only supposed to talk about the future of the physical building now called the Rose Art Museum?"

Therefore, instead of "clarifying" the University's plans, the April 17 announcement regarding the staffing decisions and timeline for the museum unleashed a new species of controversy and set itself up for criticism and second-guessing regarding the care of the artwork collection and museum this summer.

Indeed, such criticism is already taking place. Schattschneider has written a letter signed by many faculty members imploring the administration to continue Rush's employment as director. She also wrote in an April 24 e-mail to the Justice that "it seems like a good inference" that the attorney general's office pressured the University into writing the April 17 e-mail to the community. The Rose Board of Overseers has also repudiated the University for re-opening the museum without a director or a curator.

The controversy continues to grow. A legal matter regarding the will of Edward Rose, one of the founding donors of the Rose, is the most recent installment of the nonstop complication surrounding the Rose (see story, page 1).

Some are still somewhat optimistic for the future. "I remain hopeful that somehow, we'll find a way out of this public relations disaster and will ultimately do the right thing, and restore the Museum to its former glory," Schattschneider wrote.

Others fear the damage has already been done. "Of course even if the Trustees do take everything back it is hard to say how the Rose would continue given the damage to its reputation," Maarit Ostrow '11 wrote in an e-mail to the Justice.

But one thing is for sure. As calm as things might have seemed before April 17, the controversy certainly hasn't lessened in the wake of that announcement.

As Rush wrote in an e-mail to the Justice, "The atmosphere remains toxic as far as I am concerned. To witness the dismantling of the great Rose Art Museum is inexpressibly awful to live with every day. We are doing everything we can to reverse this, but the train left the station at very high speed on Jan 26.