Atlas BPS, a Black-owned firm operated by Paul Dejoie, filed a complaint against the DuSable Museum after waiting more than a year to collect $53,000 in unpaid fees for work that his janitorial and security company, Atlas BPS, provided for the museum. According to the lawsuit, as Dejoie’s firm struggled to make payroll, the DuSable Museum allegedly hired his employees without Dejoie’s knowledge or consent.
Dejoie’s firm spent hours cleaning inside and around the DuSable Museum’s exhibits. Now he has some exhibits of his own in court. Exhibit A: his firm’s contract with the DuSable. He also has a letter from his lawyer demanding that the museum pay him $53,000, which the DuSable allegedly never disbursed.
Five years ago, a larger lawsuit involving the DuSable Museum was heard in federal court. Two employees told a judge that the museum allegedly ignored their pleas to stop deducting money for medical, dental, and retirement benefits they never received. The complaint states that the museum terminated their employment after they complained for months about the issue, which allegedly left one of them with a medical bill and damaged credit. After one was let go, the DuSable allegedly paid her for just three days of work, despite her having worked ten, according to the lawsuit.
Kim Dulaney, the museum’s former vice president of education and programs, said she intends to file a lawsuit after being terminated on October 3.
The lawsuits represent legal battles that have kept the museum’s attorney busy while plaintiffs seek justice and compensation. In recent years, lawsuits filed against the DuSable Museum have become almost as common as its six-figure deficits. Together, the complaints from former employees, museum patrons, and vendors depict, according to those filings, financial struggles, business disputes, and a tense workplace environment under the leadership of President and CEO Perri Irmer, who has been at the helm for ten years.
While some Black museums across the country thrive with soaring contributions and revenues, the DuSable Museum continues to face deficits, debts, and a series of lawsuits that cast the institution in an unfavorable light. Although some critics have called for Irmer’s resignation, DuSable Board Chair Carol Moseley Braun and the museum’s trustees have publicly expressed their full support for her in a recent letter to the Chicago Crusader.
The letter was received after the Crusader published a detailed investigative story raising questions about the museum’s financial condition, its challenges, and its future as one of the nation’s oldest and most revered Black institutions, founded by pioneering artist Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs.
In an October 24 letter to the Crusader, Braun disputed several allegations mentioned in that article, which—citing IRS Form 990 figures—reported that Irmer’s earnings increased by more than $23,000 in 2023 while the museum ended the year with a deficit of over $493,000.
Braun also rejected claims that the museum failed to repair lights in the theater to cut costs.
“At no point has the Museum ever sacrificed the safety of our guests to save money. That’s an egregious accusation,” Braun said in the letter.
“The Board stands behind the mission-driven leadership of Ms. Irmer, who has guided the Museum through one of the most dynamic and challenging periods in its history.”
“It’s patently untrue that Ms. Irmer received raises while the Museum operated at a deficit. In fact, despite the terms of her employment allowing for annual salary increases, Ms. Irmer neither sought nor received any raises in her first five years of employment.”
In response to Braun’s letter, the Crusader repeated its request that the museum release audits, staff evaluations, and Irmer’s employment contract.
Late Wednesday, Lucy emailed the Crusader stating: “The information requested contains confidential, internal information that is not subject to public disclosure. Under federal law, the DuSable Museum must provide access to its IRS 990 filings, to which you have already obtained access. Accordingly, the DuSable Museum will not be providing audits, employment contracts, performance evaluations, or annual financial reports.”
As part of this series, the Crusader reviewed 10 years of The DuSable’s 990 tax filings, which are available to anyone online. However, as the Crusader reported in its previous story, the thriving Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit released their 990 tax filings directly to the public by posting them on their website. But one can also find on The Wright’s website their museum’s annual financial reports, financial statements and audit reports conducted by independent accounting firms.
The DuSable (1961) and The Wright museums (1965) share similar histories and were founded four years apart. Dr. Margaret Burroughs, a renowned artist and professor, founded The DuSable in her house while Charles H. Wright, a doctor, founded his namesake museum in the basement of his Detroit home. Dr. Burroughs and Wright were friends who shared their passion for Black history as they founded the Association of African American Museums in Washington, DC. The organization on its website honors them with a special video after they advocated for the advancement and support of Black museums.
Braun’s letter also stated that the DuSable Museum operates with a balanced budget, but lawsuits reviewed by the Crusader contain allegations portraying the museum as an institution in turmoil. According to its 2017 tax filing, the DuSable reported $75,000 in bad debt.
As part of its series on the challenges facing the DuSable Museum, the Crusader reviewed five lawsuits filed against the museum since 2018. The DuSable was named as a defendant in every complaint. Irmer was named personally in only one. She may become a defendant in a sixth lawsuit that Dulaney plans to file. After her termination, Dulaney alleged that Irmer retaliated against her with “verbal assaults” and “public defamation” after she raised concerns about mismanagement of funds.
Of the five lawsuits, three have been dismissed after being settled out of court. One was a highly publicized retaliation and wrongful-termination complaint filed by Chief Curator Leslie Guy, who was terminated in 2017. That complaint—which alleged that the DuSable misspent a $118,000 grant from the Donnelly Foundation and a $45,000 grant from the DCASE Project—was dismissed after being settled out of court. Two personal-injury suits were filed after individuals said they fell on stairs inside the museum’s theater. One was dismissed; the other, filed by Shahari Moore on February 24, 2025, remains pending, according to Trellis Law records.
Irmer herself is an attorney who earned her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. Braun, the DuSable’s board chair and the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, worked as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1973 after graduating from law school. Lucy, the DuSable’s attorney, received his law degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
They are leaders of an institution that in recent years has faced multiple lawsuits that were never decided by a jury. The cases were dismissed or settled out of court, where the terms of the agreements remain confidential and plaintiffs who sought damages for their alleged harm are bound by nondisclosure agreements.
One such case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on August 30, 2020, by Tracey Williams and Skyla Hearn. According to the complaint, since 1993, Williams, then a resident of Country Club Hills, worked for 27 years as the DuSable’s director of special events. Hearn, who began in 2016, served as the museum’s chief archivist and special collections librarian before she was terminated in 2020. Both were full-time employees, paid on a bi-weekly basis, according to the filing.
The lawsuit stated that, as an employee at the DuSable, Williams was enrolled in the institution’s group employee medical insurance plan, administered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, and its group dental insurance plan, administered by Delta Dental.
As part of the plan, the DuSable agreed to deduct the employee portion of monthly premiums from Williams’ pay and forward that money to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and Delta Dental in exchange for continued medical and dental coverage, the lawsuit alleged.
However, according to the complaint, although the DuSable Museum made the deductions from Williams’ pay, the museum allegedly failed to forward those payments to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois or Delta Dental and did not notify employees of the issue.
In April 2019, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois terminated DuSable employees’ medical insurance plans due to non-payment. The plans were not reinstated until July 2019. Three months later, Williams’ medical insurance was again terminated in October 2019 due to non-payment and reinstated in January 2020, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further alleged that in August 2019, Delta Dental terminated DuSable employees’ dental insurance plans due to non-payment. The dental plans were not reinstated for the remainder of Williams’s employment at the DuSable Museum, according to the complaint.
Despite having no dental insurance, the lawsuit claimed that the museum continued to withhold wages for Williams’ dental insurance and never returned those wages to her.
The filing also alleged that even when Williams’ medical insurance with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois was canceled twice in 2019, the DuSable Museum continued to deduct monthly premiums from her wages without forwarding them to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and without notifying her.
According to the complaint, in November 2019, Williams—unaware that her medical plan was inactive—sought medical care under the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois medical plan and incurred a bill from her provider for uncovered services. Williams notified the DuSable of the outstanding medical bill due to the terminated coverage. The complaint alleged that the museum refused to reimburse Williams for the medical bill. The overdue balance went into collections against Williams, allegedly harming her credit rating, according to the lawsuit.
The same lawsuit alleged that Williams and Hearn experienced similar problems with their deductions in their 403(b) retirement plans managed by Franklin Templeton Investments.
According to the filing, the DuSable Museum, as trustee and fiduciary of the 403(b) retirement plans, was supposed to withhold deductions from Williams’ and Hearn’s wages and transmit them to Franklin Templeton Investments for investment in their retirement accounts.
As the trustee, the DuSable also had a role in making discretionary determinations, such as hardship withdrawals, according to the complaint.
However, the lawsuit alleged that in May 2019, the DuSable deducted from Williams’ and Hearn’s wages their designated 403(b) employee contributions but failed to forward them to the investment manager at Franklin Templeton Investments.
According to the complaint, after discovering the issue, Williams and Hearn asked the DuSable to either stop taking the deductions from their bi-weekly earnings, forward the deducted wages to Franklin Templeton Investments, or return the money to them. The filing alleged that the DuSable ignored these requests and continued taking deductions without forwarding them or returning the wages.
The lawsuit also alleged that the DuSable violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the complaint, the museum failed to keep records of “additions to or deductions from wages paid each pay period” for Williams and Hearn.
“When Plaintiffs requested this information, Defendant (the DuSable Museum) refused to provide it,” the lawsuit stated.
After 27 years as director of special events, Williams left the DuSable in April 2020. Hearn was also terminated in April 2020 after four years as the museum’s archivist, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint also alleged that the DuSable failed to reimburse Hearn $1,000 she spent on a 2019 conference trip that was approved by DuSable executives, including the CEO, CFO, and COO. It further alleged that the museum failed to reimburse Hearn for additional out-of-pocket expenses tied to her job duties—including mileage, cell phone use, and supplies—to support the work of the Archives Department. The DuSable allegedly agreed to reimburse Hearn for these expenses but never did.
According to the complaint, though she worked ten days before she was terminated in April 2020, Hearn was paid for only three.
At the time of her termination, Hearn had accrued eight days of vacation time since 2019. Her lawsuit alleged that the DuSable “failed to pay Hearn any vacation pay as part of her final compensation,” in violation of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act.
The lawsuit sought $100,000 in punitive damages and a jury trial against the DuSable Museum. According to court records, the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum before being dismissed in June 2021 with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.
Although lawsuits can be costly, Lucy told the Crusader that the museum maintains liability insurance to help cover legal expenses.
“The DuSable maintains all appropriate and necessary liability, casualty, and associated business insurance policies,” Lucy said in an email.
The Atlas BPS lawsuit against the DuSable Museum is currently active in Cook County Court. On June 25, the firm filed its complaint against the museum. According to the lawsuit, in November 2022, Atlas BPS signed a contract to provide janitorial, security, and escort services to the DuSable. As part of the contract, Atlas BPS would receive $3,200 a month for its services.
Court filings state that the contract had a term of 90 to 120 days, with automatic renewal and a 30-day cancellation clause. In May 2023, both parties began using the third-party platform Bill.com to process invoices for payment.
According to the complaint, the DuSable stopped paying Atlas BPS in March 2024, despite the firm’s continued performance of its contractual duties. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to collect $52,841.45, Dejoie’s attorney, Joyce Mendoza Navarro, sent Lucy a demand letter on February 26. When no payment was made, Navarro filed suit on June 24, alleging breach of contract.
The lawsuit alleged that despite Atlas BPS’s continued performance, “the DuSable breached the agreement when it failed to issue the required 30-day advance notice of termination and ceased making payments as of March 2024, failing to pay for any services rendered thereafter.”
According to the complaint, in May 2024, relying on the DuSable’s prior payment history, Atlas BPS took out an invoice-financing loan through Bill.com to meet payroll obligations for employees working at the museum. Hoping the issue would be resolved, the firm continued fulfilling its duties through August 2024 and issued bi-weekly invoices as required by the contract.
Dejoie said he eventually borrowed at least $25,000 from a private lender to meet payroll. Around the same time, he alleged, the DuSable hired five of his employees to perform the same work directly for the museum.
Dejoie told the Crusader that he learned of the situation on Juneteenth in 2024. “They needed 12 to 14 people that day,” Dejoie said. “When I got there that morning, they said your services would not be needed.”
“They just hired them behind my back, and they said you get on board or you are out,” he said.
“Perri called me in the office one day and told me what they had done,” Dejoie added. “I said that’s not right, that’s not fair, and it’s not in our contract. My contract says if you want to hire my people, you have to have my permission. The fee to hire my employees is $5,000 per person.”
When asked to respond to Dejoie’s allegations, Lucy said, “We do not comment on pending litigation. However, the DuSable has responded to all allegations in its answer to the Atlas complaint.”
According to Cook County Court records, on October 3, Lucy filed a motion to dismiss the Atlas BPS case. On October 23, he appeared in court; the judge gave him until November 6 to file an official appearance or risk default. The next hearing is set for November 11.
On Wednesday, October 29, Lucy complied with the judge’s order and filed an appearance for the next court date.
Meanwhile, Dejoie continues to wait for resolution. “I’ve been in business for 30 years and I’ve never had to sue to get my pay,” he said. “My mother was a big fan of the DuSable. She served on the DuSable’s Women’s Board. It’s shameful, just shameful. I said to myself, ‘Do I really want to sue the DuSable?’ I need my money.”