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Classes return to Woodburn 100 with controversial murals present but out of sight

By Sophie Kaelble

Posted December 11, 2024

One of two Benton murals in Woodburn 100, before it was covered. (WTIU News)

Indiana University quietly resumed classes this semester in a large lecture space at Woodburn Hall, where a mural painted in 1933 depicts journalistic efforts to stop the then-powerful Indiana Ku Klux Klan.

The imagery of hooded Klan members burning a cross stirred controversy when Thomas Hart Benton created it. That controversy continued in 2017 when almost 2,000 people signed a petition calling on IU to remove the painting. They said it promoted hate in the wake of the racist Charlottesville, Va., riots.

The university refused, saying the painting — one of a series by Benton on Indiana history — was “intended to provoke thought” and “unquestionably an anti-Klan work.”

Katie Chattin, IU’s director of public art, also said moving the mural would cause permanent damage, due to the paint’s fragility and the installation method.

“We likely just wouldn’t have them anymore, or we would have to go to great lengths,” she said. “We would have to cut the wall out.”

Instead, IU agreed to limit use of the Woodburn Hall space to a gallery and public lecture area. Lauren Robel, IU’s provost at the time, said the art should “not involve the captive audience of classes devoted to other subjects.”

But IU resumed classes there at the start of this semester. University spokesperson Mark Bode said in a statement that retractable screens can cover the murals if instructors desire.

In 2017, however, Robel said, “Covering the murals feels like censorship and runs counter to the expressed intent of the artist to make visible moments in history that some would rather forget.”

Woodburn 100 Mural, now covered by a screen. — IU added retractable screens to Woodburn 100, which can cover the controversial murals if instructors desire. *(Devan Ridgway/WTIU News)*

IU also had a practical concern when restarting classes in the lecture hall.

“Using Woodburn Hall 100 for classroom space is a return to its historic use and addresses a need for larger instructional spaces,” Bode said.

While Chattin liked Woodburn 100’s previous usage as a gallery, she also said the current usage is alright since the artwork wasn’t damaged.

“Instructing our students is, of course, the priority of the university,” she said. “If Woodburn 100 is needed to meet that priority, then the ability to cover the murals, so long as it is safe for the artwork, is a reasonable solution.”

Media School senior lecturer Stephen Layton, who teaches a journalism class in the room primarily attended by first-year students, said he didn’t know classes were returning there. He also didn’t know the murals would be covered until he asked.

“I never saw any announcement, or anything from administration or anybody that this classroom is being reopened,” Layton said.

While he’s concerned about covering the murals, he’s glad to avoid talking about it in class because it could easily consume an entire lecture.

“Art is made to be to be seen and made to be understood,” he said. “I think the problem I have with the mural is more to do with it being very difficult to provide the necessary context.”

In the 1920s, the Indiana Klan held immense political power. The Indianapolis Times exposed state politicians with Klan ties in its 1928 Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigations.

Among those politicians was former Governor Edward Jackson, who accepted thousands of dollars from grand dragon D.C. Stephenson. The scandal and Stephenson’s conviction of rape and second-degree murder caused Klan membership to plummet.

Chattin said Benton’s inclusion of journalists in the mural’s foreground reflects efforts from the Indianapolis Times and other anti-Klan newspapers.

“The press and other entities had gone against the Klan and made some good progress in diminishing the efforts of the Klan,” she said. “And his intention was to show that in the mural.”

Layton said his students likely don’t know about the covered murals. Students, he said, could easily miss descriptions of the murals that IU posted outside the classroom.

“Basically, what we're doing is we're pretending they're not there,” Layton said.