By Diane Petryk
LEWISBURG — A district parent isn't satisfied that school officials did enough in response to a student's artwork depicting President Obama and Hitler on the same panel.
Bud Hiller said educators should talk to students and make them understand why people think senior Joseph Moralez's picture is inappropriate.
Moralez said Tuesday he is the artist who created the controversial picture, and that he would have a public statement today.
The artwork in question was on a panel about 8 feet tall by 4 feet wide and showed two half-faces looking forward: one that resembled Obama and the other, Hitler.
"I'm the last person to say we should be censoring art," Hiller said. "But it's important to be brought up and discussed and let the students at school know it's not in the best interest of everyone involved to have something like that drawn without comment, without the artist having to explain it," Hiller said.
The artwork created in class was not on display, although students could see it in the school hallway.
Lewisburg Superintendent Mark DiRocco said Tuesday he just received a new round of e-mails from parents about the art.
School director Michael Payne said he thought the issue was put to rest two weeks ago when the board, in a special meeting to evaluate the situation, decided nothing was amiss.
"There was no clear indication at all the student's intention was to equate Obama with Hitler," Payne said.
But regardless, DiRocco said the school administration has "limited amount of editorial control" over student's artistic content.
He said the board's attorney cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 1969 ruling in Tinker vs. Des Moines, in which it was decided that schools may not restrict students' speech simply to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that accompanied an unpopular viewpoint.
The work would have to pose a substantial disruption or interfere with the rights of other students for the school administration to act, he said.
Payne said the board found the work in question was not disruptive.
"There was no indication the teacher was concerned about it," he said. "There was no indication the student violated school policy."
Moreover, he said, the art itself was ambiguous "” there was no clear indication from the picture what the artist was intending.
"It could have been contrasting Obama and Hitler," Payne said. "He could have been making a sinister political statement. I've worked with a lot of young people, visual artists, they may be just putting an image out there to see what the reaction is."
Moralez's Facebook page indicates he visits online sites sarahpalinrockon.com and nobama.com, a site asking viewers to "join the resistance and stop Obama socialism."
Payne said the work has been mistakenly called a mural and mistakenly thought to have been on public display.
He said Tuesday he was surprised to have just received an e-mail on the subject from Union County Democratic Party member Steva Stowell-Hardcastle.
Reached Tuesday night, Stowell-Hardcastle said she was forwarding an e-mail she received from Hiller, who was concerned about whether it was hate- or politically related and how that might appear and affect students.
"I would like to know where the student was coming from and would have preferred the school gave us a little more information when we asked for it," Stowell-Hardcastle said.
People are absolutely right to be concerned about protecting free speech, Hiller said.
"But this was a glib portrayal of a very sensitive issue," he said. "More than just a piece of art to me. It had deeper meanings."
He said he recalled New York Times columnist Tom Friedman writing about visiting Israel when extreme talk about the prime minister became normal.
"Is this going to become normal? To compare the president to the most hated, most racist, genocidal dictator of all time?"
Hiller said he was not saying the art should not be allowed, but perhaps not placed out there without comment and not painted in a hallway where any student could see it.
While DiRocco said the art is now not where it can be seen, Hiller said for a while, at least, it was public enough for any student to see it.
