Of all the political movements of the 2010s that failed to secure for themselves real power, perhaps the most devastating failure for me personally was that of #MeToo. I was in graduate school at the height of the movement, where I was being harassed by a professor and sharing my stories with others in the same situation. Detractors have since labeled the movement as little more than a battle in a lost liberal culture war, but at the time, it was electrifying. As I messaged with other women in my field, I realized that I was not alone in my situation. In fact, my situation was nauseatingly common, and the more I and other realized this, the more urgency I felt to change it, galvanized by a sense of collective anger and sorrow that built up into something real and, evidently, dangerous.
And it was dangerous. There was a moment, albeit brief, when sexual abuse in the workplace, long the subject of whisper networks and covert references, was dragged out of the shadows and into the public spotlight. Briefly, there was a moment when it felt like real change was possible. Maybe, we thought, it wouldn’t have to happen to anyone else. Maybe, for once, actions would have consequences. As a writer, what I remember most of all, was a shared belief—perhaps naive—that sharing stories, that words themselves, not only mattered but had the power to change the balance of power itself.
That #MeToo was the closest thing many institutions got to a reckoning with incipient and rampant sexual abuse and harassment was both, in the moment, a triumph, and in the now, almost ten years later, an abject failure. Many of the figures named during this time, such as Louis C.K., Bill O’Riley, Morgan Freeman, and Johnny Depp have returned, after a stint in the time-out corner, to public life in the increasingly illiberal 2020s. There are several reasons for this, among them protest fatigue, reactionary shifts in public discourse exacerbated by the algorithms, and the alarming radicalization of young men, all accelerated by lockdown-era isolation.
But by and large, the political architects of #MeToo’s regression aren’t so much outwardly emboldened by the conservative turn (though some are) as they are given the permission to be cowardly. When the institutions involved are liberal (or liberal-facing) in nature, this cowardice tends to transpire quietly. People just stop talking about what happened and pray that the tide has turned so thoroughly that one never has to think or hear about it again.
Such is the case with David Adjaye, who in 2023 was accused by three women of sexual exploitation, harassment, and creating a hostile working environment at his firm, Adjaye Associates. He has denied all allegations. Still, an exposé in the Financial Times paints a picture of a man who, after accruing power and success, abused that power for his own gratification for many years. This pattern of alleged abuse continued at length because, as their employer, he had material power over these women—over their pay and working hours, sure, but also over the immigration status of his workers in his Accra, Ghana office. Another FT article claimed that Adjaye had handed over the names of his victims to the Ghanaian government for scrutiny of their immigration status. Not only that, but one woman described the alleged abuse as racialized, claiming in FT that Adjaye called Black women “low-hanging fruit,” and said, “If I was white he would have had respect for my body.” Adjaye denied this too.
At the time, the backlash was immense. Adjaye’s role in many of his projects under development was terminated, including some blockbuster works such as Westminster’s Holocaust Memorial. However, it didn’t take much time before many clients began to renege, offering lip service to the cause of women’s rights while still paying the firm its fee. This fall, many projects are now being completed by his office, including the Princeton University Museum of Art, Studio City in Harlem, and The Museum of West African Art in Benin City, Nigeria. The clients of these projects have since disavowed Adjaye, claiming that the work has been completed by other architects in his office. Even though he remains at the helm of that office, they allege that he discontinued his involvement in the design work itself.
As these buildings open, the result is a discursive gray area. According to the New York Times, Adjaye was not invited to the opening of the Princeton Museum. The Studio Museum would not comment to the Times as to whether he had been invited but reiterated that Adjaye had not been involved since 2023. MOWAA extended a more general invitation to Adjaye’s firm, but did not say whether Adjaye himself attended. In my view, however, even though it is very difficult and costly to change architects or stop a project if it has already passed design development, damage has nevertheless been done. Above all, damage has been done to Adjaye’s accusers who, it seems, will see no justice, and who have lost years of their lives to abuse, while the firm at which they worked is still raking in millions of dollars in fees.
It seems trivial, in comparison, that the institutions who funded Adjaye’s work are no longer using the name of a star architect explicitly in their marketing materials while remaining complicit by continuing to pay his firm and hoping a strong statement would be enough. These projects, no matter how lovely or sophisticated, are tainted work. Any critic worth their salt will have to contend with the weight of what happened to those three women and whether the building they see before them was worth it.
That Adjaye is already back winning awards such as Mexico’s Mario Pani award while being courted for other large cultural projects indicates that enough people feel the tide has thoroughly shifted on sexual harassment, such that his return to public life is possible. To me, this is evidence of a problem that extends far beyond architecture. It is a problem of power and a problem of labor. The many steps backward we’ve taken since #MeToo owe themselves to the fact that a slogan, powerful as it may be, is not permanent change. Those words I once believed in so strongly were only the beginning. In retrospect, they seem more like a Band-Aid when what is needed is a surgery.New institutionalized norms of sexual conduct, whether legislatively or through means such as unionization, expanded labor rights, and whistleblower policies, have failed to adequately materialize. Even if these goals were achieved, they would still have to be enforced, and as we’ve seen with the rollback of diversity efforts, power can go both ways. One of the most disappointing beliefs Americans seem to collectively suffer from is the belief that history only progresses in one direction which is forward. When it progresses in the other, backward and demoralized, one doesn’t quite know what to do. We ask: must we really have to fight that battle all over again?
A case like Adjaye’s demonstrates that the liberal institutions, philanthropies, governments, and foundations that fund his work appear to care more about the millions of dollars of already spent in architectural fees than they care to take a stance about the plight of women workers. So they open these new buildings, disavow Adjaye, and pay his firm, all hoping no one complains. The first step in fighting that same fight again is not letting them get away with it.
