Should Public Arts Organizations Give $ To Convicted Sex Offenders?

I don’t know the answer to this myself, but it has been bothering me since learning about Tucson conductor/convicted child sex offender Eric Holtan.

Holtan was convicted in 2000 of first- and third-degree sexual assault against two of his former students while he was a teacher in Duluth, MN.

According to the Duluth News Tribune:

Holtan, who was convicted of first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct, was ordered at his 2000 sentencing to serve two years at the Northeast Regional Corrections Center, register as a sex offender and meet the conditions of his probation for 15 years. Any violation of that probation could result in him being sent back to prison for more than 16 years.

He is currently the music minister at a Lutheran Church, an obvious problem. But there is another issue:

Holtan is the conductor and the executive director of the Tucson Chamber Artists, a classical music group that performs throughout the area. The TCA is comprised of all adults, although they do perform in churches and their audiences do not know that he is a sex offender.

TCA receives grant money from the Tucson Pima Arts Council and the Arizona Commission of the Arts, among others.

Hence my question: Should public grant organizations give money to groups led by convicted sex offenders (who, according to news reports, may be in violation of their parole)? Should grant organizations have an “ethics clause” for leaders of organizations that receive money?

I am interested in hearing from anyone from grant organizations on the subject.

2 thoughts on “Should Public Arts Organizations Give $ To Convicted Sex Offenders?

  1. I would be very interested to ask these excellent questions to representatives from both of these organizations! This convicted sex offender has violated the public trust in an irrevocable way. Why give grant money to anything he is affiliated with?? Surely there are worthy organizations that need money and AREN’T led by convicted child molesters. … I just hope people in the arts community in Tucson–including the members of this person’s chamber group– are as disgusted by this as they should be.

  2. outraged.. what is wrong with people (especially adults) who put everyone at risk and on edge just so a predator can have another chance.. here in Hawaii we find predators arrested 30 or more times yet they are back out on the streets and many go back to kill their wives and others or rape again..
    am beginning to think that probably more like 90 percent of all people have had some kind of sexual abuse as a child, and they can’t accept that it is wrong and or the damage it causes (especially the enabling of predators to continue on as serial offenders).. I think the church is to blame.. for all this insanity and they need to be held accountable and responsible for their mis use of the words forgive and forget.. which allows for millions of new victims because nothing is ever done to confront the root issues of molestation and rape in the church..?

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