Update: Artist Appeals Loss in Case over Concealment of Controversial Murals

Last year, we wrote about a decision in Kerson v. Vermont Law School, Inc., in which a federal court in Vermont held that artist Samuel Kerson could not prohibit the Vermont Law School from concealing murals he painted on the school campus.  A link to our prior coverage is here, but in a nutshell, in 1993, Kerson painted two large murals on one of the law school’s buildings.  The first panel is entitled Slavery, which depicts the violent capture and forced sale of African people, slave labor, and a slave insurrection. The second panel, entitled Liberation, depicts abolitionists arriving in Vermont, residents sheltering refugee slaves, and Vermonters aiding escaped slaves departing for the Canadian border.

For years, law students complained about the murals and the “cartoonish, almost animalistic” depictions of enslaved Africans.  After George Floyd’s death, the law school decided to cover the murals permanently.  The law school notified Kerson of its plans, and subsequently, the artist sued the school, claiming that the concealment of the murals would violate his right of integrity under the Visual Arts Right Act (“VARA”). 

In October 2021, the district court granted summary judgment to the law school, finding VARA did not pose a legal bar to the school’s concealment of the murals and dismissed the case.  Kerson subsequently appealed the decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. 

In his recently-filed opening brief, Kerson claims that the district court’s narrow interpretation of the statutory language was erroneous, and that issues of fact as to whether adverse environmental conditions caused by a wall’s erection would destroy the works in violation of VARA.  The law school has not filed its responsive brief yet, which according to the docket, is due to be filed in June.