When Pro-Life Views are Unacceptable

Last year, a number of Brown’s eating establishments invited students to put their original art on the walls. Since then, the walls have slowly become smattered with the good, the bad, the ugly, and the sometimes funny art of Brown University students. Despite the seemingly innocuous nature of wall art, however, here is where we find Brown University’s most recent manifestation of our modern-day culture war.

On one of the walls at the Gate there is a compelling mural that juxtaposes images of the Republican elephant and prominent conservative politicians with images of more than thirty penises and cutouts of quotes from anti-gay rights activists. The mural has been there since the middle of last school year, and it hangs there still today. For a short time, last year, just a few feet away, hung ten images of a developing fetus and one image of a newborn baby. The art invited students to “place a sticker at the stage in the developmental process that they considered the fetus to be human”.

The show, entitled Beyond Vaginas, was the creation of five student artists who wanted to explore reproductive issues using art, so they formed a group independent study project. “We would read papers and try to figure out how to tell people about what we read visually,” said Jennifer Quiroa ‘09, one of the student artists. “We didn’t want to shove any ideas down anybody’s throat.” Nevertheless, it seems that may have been precisely what happened. Within less than 48 hours the art was no longer up. The Gate had requested that the girls take it down, citing the following reasons: 1) there should not be pictures of vaginas in public spaces; 2) the art makes pro-choice people feel uncomfortable; 3) the one display with three picture frames equates black people and Jews to unborn children; and 4) the terms fetus and unborn child were used interchangeably on one piece’s placard.

It should be noted that only two of the five students were pro-life; that there was not one picture of a vagina depicted in any of the art despite the Gate’s claim that there was; and the instant that Jennifer heard that one of the placards used the term fetus and unborn child interchangeably, she ran to the Gate and hung a new placard using only the term fetus correcting the alleged error. Additionally, the accusation regarding the equation of black people and Jews with unborn children came from one of Jennifer’s pieces in which she had three facts displayed in three picture frames. One frame stated that “the Supreme Court Ruled in 1816 that blacks were not considered human.” The second had written in it, “During a speech on May 1923, Hitler said ‘Jews are not Human.’” And, the final frame read, “According to the Supreme Court, today unborn children are not considered human.”

“I was really upset,” Jennifer said. “I was upset that my art came out to some people as being pushy.” Anna Hsu ‘10, another one of the student artists, was surprised. “I was shocked that someone would put in the effort to complain. Art is supposed to be provocative; art is supposed to make you think.” Anna said, “I was really confused by the standards. For example, there was a disturbing photo about anorexia that wasn’t exactly pleasant to look at. And I remember a picture of a guy who was naked from behind.”

While Anna’s art was not among those included in the complaint, her art was removed along with the rest of the display. Anna also presents, I think, what is the most salient criticism regarding the display’s removal. Brown University purports to be a place where the free exchange of ideas is encouraged. But by whom? It is moments like these that prove to me that in this ivory tower, the desire for the free exchange of ideas is nothing but a facade. The students at Brown stand unopposed to hearing others present what they already believe, but when something disagreeable, or, distinctly conservative, presents itself, few have qualms about quashing the decidedly un-Brown sentiments.

As Anna said, art is supposed to be provocative and make you think, and, as most Brown students would agree, offensiveness is no excuse for quashing opposition. And standards? Since when did Brown University decide that decency standards existed? We are, after all, the school that sponsors and plays host to the now-famous, Sex Power God (America’s most famous college orgy). But let’s be honest. This is a University setting where legitimate criticisms are supposed to be encountered and considered. The perception that abortion is an eggregious crime against humanity is held by a significant portion of Americans. While only 5% of Americans think that abortion should be illegal in all cases, nearly 70% believe that significant restrictions ought to be placed on the act, and 55% believe that 95% or more of the 1.3 million annual abortions are unjustifiable according to a 2006 CBS opinion poll. All this is to say that pro-life promulgators are no more absurd, fundamentalist Christian loons, or bigoted misogynists who want to control your body, than are prochoice promulgators sadistic murderers. Beyond that, however, while Jennifer’s picture frame piece presented a fairly overt pro-life message, the other art pieces did nothing more than to ask students to engage in a discussion about the issue. “A lot of the art, I think, represented more than one side,” Anna told me.

When I asked Jennifer if she would hang her pieces up again if the Gate asked her, she answered enthusiastically, “Absolutely!” When I asked Brown University Dining Services if they would extend such an invitation, I was given an ambiguous answer that I can only assume means no. BUDS reserves the “right to disqualify pieces based on what we think our customers should be looking at while enjoying a meal we prepared for them.” It seems that for now, the girls will have to find a different venue for their art if they still want it to be displayed.