Judge says S.F. school board violated law in covering mural
The San Francisco school board violated state law when it voted to cover up a historic and controversial 1930s mural, putting politics before legal requirements, a Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday.
The ruling means that the sprawling artwork inside George Washington High School — which depicts the nation’s first president and the high school’s namesake — will remain visible and unaltered for the time being.
The George Washington High School Alumni Association sued over the issue in October 2019.
The controversy centers on parts of the mural
depicting slavery and white settlers stepping over a dead Native American.
The ruling is the latest blow to a school board mired in lawsuits, controversies and flipflopping over the past two years, as board members pursued an agenda focused on racial justice amid pandemic school closures and despite concerns over insufficient public input and uncertain legal ground.
The board also voted earlier this year to change 44 school names associated with slavery, oppression, genocide and colonization but ultimately reversed the decision, acknowledging problems in the process after a local attorney threatened to sue over violations of the Brown Act, which dictates how public meeting are run.
The school board voted two years ago to paint over the mural before reversing that decision two months later, opting instead to obscure the art with panels or curtains. The controversy, which grabbed international headlines, pitted the issue of racial equity against artistic freedom and historic preservation at a time of reflection over race and reparations for historic atrocities and public displays associated with America’s ugly past.
Dozens of current and former Washington students who advocated for the destruction of the mural said they didn’t want a daily, gutwrenching reminder of the enslavement and massacre of Black people and Native Americans.
Yet the school district and the elected school board failed to follow environmental impact regulations, which include studying all alternatives prior to a decision about the mural. Instead, the school board voted to cover up the mural and as part of an environmental review, asked staff to come up with alternatives for doing that.
“The hallmark of our system is that whether it concerns the President of the United States or a local school board, the rule of law — the process — is more important than the result,” Judge AnneChristine Massullo said in her ruling.
“A resultoriented board was
determined to take down all 13 panels of the murals” even though the offending material was located in just two panels, Massullo said. They were also committed to spending $500,000 on the project.
The 1,600squarefoot mural, titled “Life of Washington,” was part of the federal Works Progress Administration’s art commissions. It was painted in 1936 and is one of several such pieces in the city. Similar frescoes at Mission High School feature images of missionaries teaching Native Americans.
The estimated cost to cover the mural — including the review, labor and material — was expected to reach nearly $900,000, even as the district faces a significant budget deficit in the coming years.
An environmental impact report should consider how and whether the school board’s goal can be met without covering all of the mural, the judge said, adding all options must be considered.
“California as a matter of longstanding public policy places enormous value on its
environmental and historical resources,” she wrote in her ruling.
Officials from the Washington High School Alumni Association declined to comment on the ruling, citing advice from their attorney.
During the decision process and leading up to the vote, board members downplayed concerns over the environmental review and pleas from historians, artists and others, including those in the American Indian community and African American academics and activists.
African American artist Dewey Crumpler advocated for keeping the mural. Crumpler created an alternative mural in the mid1960s when opposition was first raised to the Washington mural. His fresco also depicts soldiers standing over the body of a dead American Indian.
“Art’s role, if it’s any good, is to make us uncomfortable with the status quo,” Crumpler said in 2019.
Mural preservationists say the images depict history and
that destroying them amounts to censorship. They also say the mural’s creator — Russian artist and San Francisco resident Victor Arnautoff — was a communist who was highly critical of America’s history of racism and his goal in painting the frescoes was to expose the dark side of American history and its first president.
Mural supporters acknowledged the images were disturbing, but also an opportunity for learning, which should include curriculum at the school to educate students about Washington’s past.
“I consider art a visual expression of where we were, where we are and where we’re going,” said Lope Yap, of the high school’s alumni association, in 2019. “Politically speaking, there aren’t more people more left than me. This is not left versus right, but right versus wrong.”
Critics of the mural, including current and former students as well as parents, say the images are offensive and disturbing, and something students shouldn’t have to see
every day.
Mural opponent and school board member Alison Collins said in 2019 that the “mural is not historic. It is a relic. It is a remnant from a bygone era.”
Collins said to mural supporters: “You don’t get to tell us to keep them. If you want them, come get them. You don’t get to threaten us with lawsuits and ballot measures.”
Massullo ordered the board to set aside its votes on the mural.
District officials said they were reviewing the decision, which does not prevent the school board from voting to cover up the mural in the future, as long as the law is followed.
The board cannot take any further action regarding the mural until at least September, when it’s required to submit a plan for an environmental review with the alumni association’s approval.