Museum board seeks to remove Cesar Chavez from California Hall of Fame

The Sacramento Bee on Mar 19, 2026

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Museum Board of Trustees is seeking to remove Cesar Chavez, a storied labor leader and civil rights icon, from the California Hall of Fame after an article published Wednesday in The New York Times revealed disturbing allegations of sexual abuse of girls and women for years.

In a written statement issued shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, the California Museum Board of Trustees announced it is moving to remove Chavez from its roster of inductees based on the credibility of the allegations outlined in The New York Times article.

Chavez, who died in 1993, was inducted into the California Hall of Fame as a member of its inaugural class in 2006. The museum is located on O Street in downtown Sacramento.

The museum has never removed a Hall of Fame inductee.

“As this is an unprecedented situation for the California Hall of Fame, the board is immediately establishing a protocol to manage his removal and that of any other inductee should it be necessary going forward,” California Museum trustees said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to the survivors of abusive behavior from this man, whom so many regarded as a hero.”

The multi-year investigation by The New York Times detailed accounts by multiple women, including civil rights leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers labor union, Dolores Huerta.

The Times interviewed 60 people who corroborated the findings that Chavez groomed and sexually assaulted women, including minors. Two of the women interviewed said Chavez assaulted them when they were prepubescent girls and young teenagers in the 1960s and 1970s as he became a revered Latino leader by organizing farmworkers in California, later expanding to other states.

News of the sexual abuse allegations was followed on Wednesday by calls to rename the California holiday as well as public places honoring Chavez, along with removing statues of the labor leader.

A proposal by a Central Valley lawmaker is seeking to rename Cesar Chavez Day, a state holiday on March 31, to Farmworker Day. An artist who painted a mural depicting Chavez in 2024 in Modesto said he is open to making changes to mural to honor Huerta instead.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty announced the city has started the process of removing Chavez’s name from the downtown Sacramento Cesar E. Chavez Plaza and appointed a renaming committee. Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval said the university will remove its statue of Chavez from the campus Peace Garden.

The California Museum said it still plans to recognize the UFW’s progress under Chavez’s leadership of the labor union he co-founded with Huerta.

“We also still wish to recognize the significant progress that the union achieved under his leadership,” according to the museum’s statement. “It is our hope that the legacy of his efforts continues to improve the lives of farm workers, and that the profound contributions to civil rights by Dolores Huerta, a member of the California Hall of Fame’s 7th class, and Larry Itliong, a member of the 14th class, are never forgotten.”

(The Bee’s Lia Russell and Mathew Miranda contributed to this story.)

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