The previous chief curator of the Mesa Modern Arts Museum, Tiffany Fairall, is suing town of Mesa, Arizona, claiming that it violated her rights to free speech when it demanded a piece alluding to police brutality be faraway from a Shepard Fairey exhibition. The lawsuit, filed in Arizona district courtroom on 31 October and naming six present and former municipal officers as co-defendants, additionally alleges that town violated her rights by firing her in retaliation “for opposing discrimination”.
The lawsuit, which was first reported by Southwest Modern, recounts not solely the occasions associated to the American artist Fairey’s exhibition on the centre of the controversy, but in addition makes an attempt to convey a sample of seemingly censorious behaviour by municipal staff in Mesa. Different situations outlined within the grievance embrace an incident in June 2020 when Fairall was allegedly chastised for carrying a Black Lives Matter shirt throughout a digital assembly. One other is a message obtained later that yr suggesting that Fairall and Cindy Ornstein, town’s director of arts and tradition and the chief director of the Mesa Arts Middle on the time, had been organising exhibitions that had been “too liberal”.
The work on the centre of the controversy is a 2019 print by Fairey, My Florist is a Dick (2019), which depicts a skull-faced police officer in riot gear wielding a nightstick topped with a flower. Adjoining textual content reads: “My florist is a dick. When his day begins, your days finish.” It was initially as a consequence of be included within the exhibition Dealing with the Big: 3 A long time of Dissent on the Mesa Modern Arts Museum, an establishment housed within the city-owned Mesa Artwork Middle. After points had been raised with the My Florist is a Dick print, particularly issues that its message opposing police brutality would possibly offend members of Mesa’s municipal police power, the Fairey exhibition and two others——solo exhibits by the Native American artists Thomas “Breeze” Marcus (Tohono O’odham) and Douglas Miles (San Carlos Apache, Akimel O’odham)—had been delayed. Fairall claims she was instructed that the Fairey exhibition may solely proceed if My Florist is a Dick was eliminated.
The Mesa Modern Arts Museum Photograph by Cygnusloop99, through Wikicommons
On the time a number of freedom of expression organisations—together with the Nationwide Coalition Towards Censorship (NCAC), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona and Pen America—issued statements decrying town of Mesa’s actions.
“Authorities-run companies could decide what arts tasks to fund and show, however their First Modification obligations explicitly stop them from denying tasks with messages they dislike whereas allowing these they help,” Elizabeth Larison, the director for the humanities and tradition advocacy programme at NCAC, and Jared Keenan, ACLU Arizona’s authorized director, wrote in a joint assertion. “Efforts to forestall the show of an paintings on account that it would trigger offense doesn’t justify censorship. On this period of intense political polarisation, many artworks could also be offensive to somebody’s viewpoint.”
The Fairey exhibition finally opened on 7 October, with My Florist is a Dick included. The present closed on 21 January 2024. Based on the grievance Fairall confronted a number of well being issues throughout the interval of the censorship controversy, a few of which had been worsened by the stress of the battle and extra forms imposed on her actions in consequence. Final February she filed complaints alleging retaliation and intercourse and incapacity discrimination with the federal Equal Employment Alternative Fee. In Might of this yr, town fired Fairfall.
Within the lawsuit, Fairfall alleges the complete saga has negatively affected her “long-term employment and earnings potential flowing” and brought about her “humiliation, trauma, excessive stress, despair and bodily and psychological ache and anguish”. She alleges that Mesa violated rights enshrined by the First Modification and the 14th Modification, and that the defendants’ “conduct unlawfully chills free and open dialogue on problems with public significance and intimidates different metropolis staff and members of the neighborhood from equally participating in protected speech”.
Fairfall is in search of a jury trial and finally reduction within the type of damages, again pay, misplaced advantages, compensation for the alleged infringements on her rights and hurt to her fame and psychological well being, plus associated curiosity. She can be in search of to have her place reinstated, or commensurate compensation. She is being represented by the Phoenix-based regulation agency Shields Petitti & Zoldan.
In an announcement to Southwest Modern, a spokesperson for town of Mesa stated “we’re going to abstain since litigation is pending”.
