The settlement of the res-titution claims made by the Italian government against the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Getty Museum in Malibu, and the Cleveland Museum of Art and the return to Italy of looted antiquities raise ques-tions about the integrity of some museum directors and trustees – well-informed people whom one would expect to be the guardians and defenders of the past, not par-ticipants in the commercial processes which lead to its destruction.
The museum directors definitely should know and have some subject area expertise here, but likely the trustees wouldn't have. While the museum directors should educate them, the financial position the trustees have will almost always tend to drown out the better angels of the museum directors who rely on those trustees' support.
Part of the question is how to redesign the structural support underpinning the system to help ensure more ethical outcomes.