A federal appeals court in New York is considering whether a law school in Vermont modified a pair of large murals when it concealed them behind a wall of panels against the artist's wishes after they were considered by some in the school community to be racially offensive.
Artist Sam Kerson created the colorful murals entitled “Vermont, The Underground Railroad” and “Vermont and the Fugitive Slave” in 1993 on two walls inside a building at the private Vermont Law School, now called Vermont Law and Graduate School, in South Royalton. Years later in 2020, the school said it would paint over them. But when Kerson objected it said it would cover them with acoustic tiles. The school gave Kerson the option of removing the murals, but he said he could not without damaging them.
