Censorship in the art classroom.

This is the first of a series of articles examining issues and consequences surrounding the censorship and suppression of artistic expression in the art classroom.

Censorship and other attacks on learning have come to pose a significant threat to teachers. The 1993-4 edition of "Attacks on the Freedom to Learn," an annual report on censorship published by People for the American Way, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit anticensorship organization, cited 462 instances of attempted censorship and other challenges to education in forty-six states during the 1993-4 school year. This figure represented an increase from 1992-3 when 395 incidents were reported and was the highest annual number of cases reported in the twelve years records have been kept. Such attacks are becoming more frequent and increasingly involve visual arts materials.

In over 40 percent of the challenges to the freedom to learn during the 1993-4 school year, the censors were successful. Findings by the American Library Association and other public interest groups suggest the majority of challenges each year go unreported. Many teachers, in their desire to keep their jobs accede to the censors, demands. This response often emboldens censors to become ever more zealous in their efforts.

Sources of Censorship Activity

Censorship can come from anywhere across the political spectrum. Among the most frequent attacks on learning are those from the conservative religious right whose objections are based on sexual content, objectionable language and religious beliefs. Ten percent of the challenges involve claims that educators promote homosexuality.

Increasingly, attacks on learning are also coming from the political left with objections predicated on issues of political incorrectness as in the following: depictions of gender or race which are alleged offensive, such as female nudity; what are perceived as sexist or racist images or language; any kind of religious content; and other politically sensitive subjects. In many cases, teachers have been fired, disciplined or harassed in the wake of such attacks. In some cases, teachers have suffered damage to their careers and reputations.

One result of censorship is that teachers become increasingly reluctant to use materials in their classrooms that may raise difficult social questions, communicate values, portray potentially controversial subject matter or cause students to think about important issues. Is art education in danger of being reduced to the study and creation of decorative images devoid of values, social issues or other content deemed offensive to particular individuals or groups?

As reflected in the examples highlighted in this article, censorship is an issue facing art teachers throughout the nation. Works of art are never value neutral. Whether abstract or representational, they depict images and ideas that reflect issues of contemporary culture often considered "difficult" or "controversial." Questions regarding such content require creative and intelligent educational practices that allow expression and discussion--not censorship.

Teaching children to create works of art as part of their emotional and conceptual growth requires a curriculum and pedagogy of openness, honesty and clarity, as well as an environment where children can explore and discuss life's difficult questions. By participating in the production of artworks, children leam to express and to interpret the conditions of their culture. In doing so, they learn to challenge or reaffirm its values, attitudes and beliefs. It is through these challenges and reaffirmations that they grow into responsible inquiring citizens. Censorship in many instances can discourage and inhibit such growth.

RELATED ARTICLE: Art Books and Prints Seized

In the spring of 1994, an administrator and a band of angry parents marched into a Tucson, Arizona, elementary school artroom and seized ten art books and eight art prints purchased for the school with a library grant. The objections included what it characterized as depictions of nudity and "pornographic," "perverted" and "morbid" themes in works by Picasso, El Greco, Renoir, O'Keeffe, Manet, Kahlo, Gauguin and Bosch.

Because district procedures were not followed, the administration's actions on behalf of the parents were rescinded and the materials were returned to the classroom and were reviewed by a district committee. The committee ultimately voted to retain the materials. The art teacher was fortunate for not having been dismissed. Other teachers in her situation have experienced drastic repercussions for such incidents.

RELATED ARTICLE: Student Mural Destroyed

Parents in Longmont, Colorado, objected to a mural created by middle school students, calling it "Satanic." The mural was executed by students who the art teacher described as talented but were in danger of "slipping through the cracks." The complaint centered on the mural's depiction of medieval knights, wizards and dragons. A district review committee concluded the mural was offensive and directed that the walls be white-washed. Excluded from participating in the review, the artists and their parents objected that the ruling was one-sided. One supporter said, "[the ruling] sent a clear message to censors that they have a free hand to do whatever they want."

RELATED ARTICLE: Painting Excluded from Literary Magazine

An objection by a Lake Mary, Florida, principal to a painting that was to appear in the high school's literary magazine culminated in a request for the painting's removal on the grounds that its depicted nudity was offensive. According to the principal, the painting illustrated genitals that were "too revealing for the literary magazine." Although a student committee had chosen the painting, it felt it had enough pictures to fill the publication and decided not to challenge was not included in the magazine. One student said, "In the opinion of the committee, other staff and a majority of the students, the drawing [sic] is not offensive or obscene. It is an expression that should not be censored.

RELATED ARTICLE: Removal of Book Requested

A parent's objections to the book Tar Beach by African American artist Faith Ringgold resulted in a request for removal of the book from a Winder, Georgia, elementary school library for containing the word "beer" and for a racial reference alleged to denigrate white people. The book, which depicts Ringgold's quilt of the same name, is set in the 1930s and illustrates the aspirations of a young black girl growing up in New York City during the depression.

A unanimous recommendation by a review committee to retain the book was upheld by the school board. Its report to the board found that while there were racial references, they accurately reflected attitudes of the period and were not designed to "demand or inflame" whites. It also concluded that the "mere use of the word `beer' did not justify censure." Additionally, committee members felt the book "sent a positive message by depicting an inner-city minority child dreaming to improve not only her station in life but that of her family as well."

RELATED ARTICLE: High School Student Artwork Called Satanic

Parents and citizens in a southern Indiana community objected to artwork by high school students that was exhibited at the public library, calling for its removal. The objectors took offense to drawings, paintings, sculptures and cartoons from the show, labeling them "Satanic and graphic."

The objectors, who had one year earlier successfully challenged the school district's reading program, initially complained about the artwork to the library which refused to remove the exhibit. Objectors then appealed to the school district. One week before the exhibit was to end, the super-intendent instructed the art teacher to remove the exhibit and reassemble it before the school board for review. Although the board dismissed the objectors' request for removal, the exhibit was never reinstalled.

RELATED ARTICLE: Potter Program Challenged

A pottery program in an elementary school in Maine was challenged on the grounds that it promoted New Age religion. As part of a visiting potter and sculptor's week-long program, second grade students were asked to "learn about the pottery and sculpture of primitive cultures, then create and name masks of figures of their own invention. The artist had been working in local schools for six years.

Local press and media sources reported that, "students stood in a circle and imagined a powerful mythic helpers to keep their masks safe in the kiln." The artist also asked students to write stories about the masks' personalities. In doing so, the students were exploring relationships that existed between primitive maskmaking traditions and the rituals of their production and use.

Parents and local residents expressed concern to local media and to school officials that the program was promoting New Age religion by including "elements of Taoism, Shintoism, Buddhism and Native American religions." Some parents thought the program violated the separation of church and state. However, none of the parents who spoke against it had children who participated in the program.

After a meeting between the objecting parents and the school committee, the superintendent asserted it was important for community members "to have knowledge of what's being taught." However, the committee co-president, who had two children at the school, praised the pottery program as "a marvelous experience for my children." The challenge was unsuccessful, and the teacher was asked to return to the district for the following year.

RELATED ARTICLE: Michelangelo Fresco Called Disgusting

Community members and students in Oshkosh. Wisconsin, condemned the use of a Michelangelo fresco, The Creation of Adam, for a high school yearbook cover because it contained frontal nudity, calling the work "degrading and disgusting." The yearbook, titled "Renaissance," also contained three full-page black-and-white photographs of the Expulsion of adam from the Garden, which exhibits male nudity. The yearbook advisor, who also serves as the school's art teacher, said his staff selected the Creation of Adam in part because it symbolized the rebirth and change at the high school and, thus, was appropriate fro the Renaissance theme.

Shortly after the yearbook was published, the principal began receiving calls from parents about the appropriateness of including male nudity in the yearbook. Several days later, the local newspaper received letters condemning the artwork as pornographic. One compared the yearbook to the actions of serial killer Ted Bundy. "Where does art end and soft porn begin? Where does soft porn end and hard core pornography begin? . . . [Ted Bundy] did not start out intending to commit gruesome crimes; he simply wanted to look at pictures of nude people. It grew. What will the yearbook yield?" Another parent called the yearbook degrading, adding 'I don't care if it's the best artwork in world; it shouldn't be in a high school yearbook." One board of education member said, "That kind of artwork doesn't belong on the cover of a yearbook. It surprises me what passes in the name of culture," he said calling for the art teacher's removal as yearbook advisor. Another board member said, "The advisor has done a great disservice to the class."

According to the art teacher, school administrators and many students supported the yearbook staff's decision to use the artwork. "If this is good enough for the Sistine Chapel, it should be good enough for the Oshkosh West yearbook," he said. No changes were made to the yearbook and neither the art teacher nor his staff were disciplined.

Albert A. Anderson and Charles R Garoian are associate professors of art education at the Pennsylvania State University.