Closure of UNT art show points to larger climate of fear on college campuses

From KERA News:

The University of North Texas recently made national headlines for closing an art exhibition on campus days after it opened.

But it’s not an isolated incident. It’s just one example of a growing climate of fear and censorship, and it’s happening at colleges across the country.

“We’re in a really chilling atmosphere at this very moment,” said Chloe Kempf, a lawyer for the ACLU of Texas. “But I would say, in general, over the course of our history, this is a very uncommon action.”

Anxiety around free speech

The recent action isn’t the first art-related controversy on campus. Last year, five North Texas lawmakers sent a letter to UNT asking for the removal of an exhibit where “The murder of a people = genocide” was written in Hebrew.

The lawmakers described the pro-Palestinian artwork as antisemitic and warned that the work might run afoul of a federal antidiscrimination law and an executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott.

In that instance, two students — not the university — removed one piece of their exhibition early. The gallery in that incident is managed by the student union instead of the art school.

And these incidents aren’t just happening in Texas. At Pepperdine University, a private Christian school in California, a museum director resigned after pieces within an exhibition were altered or removed.

One video of performance art, which used footage from multiple protests and marches including demonstrations against immigration policies, was removed. Another work in the show was modified. A fabric swatch on a sculpture was moved so that embroidered phrases “Save the Children” and “Abolish ICE” were no longer visible.As a result, several artists asked to pull their work from the museum, and the exhibition ended six months early.

Last year at Ohio’s Kent State University, the school put a screen in front of a student-produced artwork that depicted violence toward elected officials. The student artist removed the work.

At University of North Carolina, the school covered a pro-Palestinian mural with wood paneling.

Chilling effect on college campuses

It’s not just art. There’s also stronger scrutiny of class syllabuses, and changes being made in courses and degree programs. Administrators and faculty have shared concerns about students secretly recording professors and reporting them for discussing controversial topics.

Last year, 32 states introduced bills that limit speech on college and university campuses. Fifteen of those states passed legislation, according to PEN America, a nonprofit advocating for First Amendment protections.

Texas is one of those states. It passed two new laws that limit speech on college campuses.

One, Senate Bill 2972, adds new restrictions on protests on college campuses. The other, Senate Bill 37, curbs the power of faculty senates, allows political appointees to review curricula and degree programs, and creates a new office to review complaints from students, faculty and staff that could potentially threaten a university’s funding.

State Sen. Brent Hagenbuch, R-Denton, is a co-author of SB 37.

“I, and other parents I’ve talked to over time, feel like sometimes we send our kids off to college and they’re getting indoctrinated with various ideologies. And that’s not what Texas needs in its universities,” he said in an interview with KERA News.

For Hagenbuch, the bill is meant to address what he sees as an imbalance of viewpoints in higher education. He also said it prompts schools to focus on providing students with a “degree of value” that prepares them for the workforce.

“I think any fair person would say, frankly, that our universities have been skewed on one side or the other,” he said. “We need to get back to focusing first on practical reasons for education and then making sure that there’s an opening for civil discourse where various sides can express their opinions.”

But others say this legislation prompts universities to implement their own restrictions in response.

Last month, the University of Texas system decided to limit classroom discussions of “unnecessary controversial subjects.”

“When people don’t know what they need to to avoid getting in trouble they’re going to just automatically do less and censor themselves,” said Kempf, from the ACLU of Texas. “A lot of this has to do with politics at both the national and state level. There are laws, policies and executive orders that are making people on college campuses worry about what they’re allowed to say and what not to say.

“It also gives leeway to leaders on our college campuses to make discriminatory and censorial decisions.”

Critiquing I.C.E. with paletas

Victor Quiñonez, also known as Marka27, is the artist whose show was abruptly shut down by UNT in February.

Quiñonez was born in Mexico and raised in Dallas. His exhibition, “Ni de Aquí Ni de Allá (Not From Here, Not From There), explored the tension of living at the intersection of two cultures.

The show included work from his I.C.E. Scream series. In it, a reworked seal for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement instead reads as “U.S. Inhumane and Cruelty Enforcement.” The seal appears on a pushcart for frozen treats – and the words are repeated on the popsicle sticks that poke out from colorful paleta sculptures.

Some of the paletas also have handcuffs, guns and laser-etched images of border crossings inside.

“I’ve always had experience with positive and negative feedback. But never in my 30-plus year career have I had an exhibition canceled or a large work of art censored,” Quiñonez said in a conversation with KERA News.

On March 12, the Denton Record-Chronicle obtained an email from Provost Michael McPherson to faculty confirming that UNT leaders removed the exhibit because they wanted to avoid disruptions to “the educational environment” and potential “impact on university operations and resources.”

Spokespeople for UNT did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

However, on March 12, the Denton Record-Chronicle obtained an email from Provost Michael McPherson to faculty confirming that UNT leaders removed the exhibit because they wanted to avoid disruptions to “the educational environment” and potential “impact on university operations and resources.”

Text messages between the university’s president, Harrison Keller, and McPherson were released as part of an open records request. The texts, which were first reported by Urgent Matter, indicated the pair were concerned about “barking from our friends in Austin,” related to the exhibition.

Prior to that, a leaked transcript of a meeting at its College of Visual Arts and Design, verified by the Denton Record-Chronicle, showed that faculty was given little information about the show’s closure.

Faculty asked if the UNT legal division would represent them if they were targeted by students or lawmakers, and Karen Hutzel, dean of the College of Visual Arts and Design, said no. She also told the art faculty that university leaders have lost some confidence in university policies, in part because they have been revised often over the past two legislative sessions.

Hutzel warned faculty that UNT isn’t immune from leadership changes and funding cuts if state lawmakers feel they are antagonistic or noncompliant.

Funding loss is a real concern for the UNT System, which is currently facing a $45 million budget shortfall, in part due to changes in the state’s formula for funding and a significant drop in international student enrollment.

Lawmakers are paying attention. Andy Hopper, a Republican who represents Denton County in the Texas House, shared a statement with The Dallas Morning News and the Denton Record-Chronicle. He agrees with the decision to close the Quiñonez show.

Screenshots of text messages between the UNT president, Harrison Keller, and Provost Michael McPherson were released as part of an open records request.

“These institutions do not exist to provide a publicly-funded platform for those who despise our republic and the defense of our laws,” Hopper said. “Across Texas, taxpayers have made it clear to their representatives that universities need to stay in their lane and educate students, and I applaud UNT for removing this exhibit.”

UNT exhibition closure ‘sends a message’

William Harris is a strategic campaign specialist for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech.

The organization is tracking censorship across the country, including Texas.

“We are seeing an alarming trend of Texas schools failing to really uphold their burdens under the First Amendment,” he said.UNT has the right to choose what it shows on campus, he said, but the school’s decision to close the exhibition “sends a message.”

“That message is that political pressure wins out, and artists, faculty, and students should self-censor,” he said. Even people who disagree with the anti-ice messaging should be concerned about limits on speech, he continued.

“If you might flinch at the anti-ICE message here, you should remember that across the country right now, FIRE is defending cases where pro-ICE expression is being censored.”

At UNT, a protest, a funeral

Alicia Eggert is an associate professor of art at UNT. After the closure of Quiñonez’s show, she said her students fear their work could be censored, too.

“[Art] allows people to speak and to have a voice, and it’s especially important that minorities and marginalized voices, especially, are able to be heard and their experiences can be shared with the larger community.”

In February, after the Quiñonez show was closed, UNT art graduate students staged a funeral in protest of the show’s closing and later spoke out against the decision at a Board of Regents meeting.

Art faculty published an open letter criticizing the administration for putting the art program at risk for future recruitment.

“They think that their expressive rights have died at UNT,” said FIRE’s Harris. “And that’s really serious. That’s the real red flag here that students don’t feel the administration will have their back to speak about these matters of public concern, which is exactly what they should be doing on a public university campus.”

‘My love for Dallas, my love for Texas’

Art has always been at the forefront of change, Quiñonez said, and he draws inspiration from leaders of the Mexican Muralism Movement, such as David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco.

A mural of Rivera’s, which included a likeness of communist leader Vladimir Lenin, was removed from the walls of Rockefeller Center in 1934.

For Quiñonez, censorship is evidence of the power of art.

“For people to really work very hard at censoring artwork or limiting what people can say through music, through performance, through paintings, through art exhibits, it just validates how powerful art is and how it speaks to people,” he said.

You can’t see his work in Denton. But he does have an installation up at the Latino Cultural Center through March 30. The facility is owned and operated by the City of Dallas’ Office of Arts and Culture. The city declined an interview but sent a statement.

“The LCC is proud to continue the work of the vision of the Office of Arts and Culture, ensuring residents and visitors thrive and connect through meaningful arts and cultural experiences,” spokesperson Ashley Guevara wrote in part.

Quiñonez said this experience hasn’t changed his love for Texas, but he knows that situations like his can feed into stereotypes that people outside of the state might have.

“I wanna believe that there is a huge majority of people that want freedom of expression, that wanna protect the First Amendment, and all these amazing things that make our country what it is,” he said.

“Unfortunately, it’s a strange time to be creating art when there is a minority group that is controlling what’s happening with universities and institutions at the moment. But I believe that the students, the faculty, and the majority of the public do want to see artists have freedom to speak their mind.”

Quiñonez is looking for a different North Texas venue to host the cancelled UNT show.

If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KERAnews.org. Thanks for donating today.