BLOOMINGTON -- The provost of Indiana University has decided that a lecture hall where an 80-year-old mural depicting a Ku Klux Klan rally hangs will no longer be used as a classroom beginning in the spring semester 2018.
The 12-foot-by-12 foot mural was created by Thomas Hart Benton for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and depicts the social and industrial history of Indiana.
The controversial section shows robed Klansmen in the corner of one of the panels burning a cross and a white nurse caring for a black and a white child.
In a statement to the community, Provost Lauren Robel says the mural cannot be moved because the paint that was used has become extremely fragile. In addition, the space in Woodburn Hall was designed specifically to house the mural and moving it "would almost certainly cause irreparable damage." Robel also said that covering it "feels like censorship and runs counter to the expressed intent of the artist to make visible moments in history that some would rather forget."
While I believe that we can and should educate the public and our community about the murals, that intellectual work can and should take place in a context that does not involve the captive audience of classes devoted to other subjects. Therefore, Woodburn 100 will convert to other uses beginning in the spring semester 2018 - Provest Lauren Robel
According to the university, the mural has been a source of controversy on the IU Bloomington campus since 1941 when Indiana University President Herman B. Wells had the paintings installed in the IU Auditorium, the IU Theater and Woodburn Hall.
The university made the decision in 2005 to allow the mural to remain in Woodburn Hall, despite criticism.
A petition circulated in August had called for the university to remove a section of the mural.
Indiana University's Commission of Multicultural Understanding says the mural “serves as a reminder and testimonial to an unsavory and criminal portion of Indiana’s history” and that the mural does not signify approval of the KKK – past or present.
“One of Indiana University’s missions is to preserve the arts,” COMU states on their university page. “Removing the panel could result in damage or destruction of the panels.”
COMU commissioned a video project in 2012 to provide an educational context for the controversial murals. You can watch that video below.
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