Dive Brief:
- Murals painted in the 1930s that depict the founding of Dartmouth College with racist and sexist imagery will be removed from the walls of a university building and stored in an off-campus location, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader.
- Interim Provost David Kotz said the four murals would be maintained by curators at the Hood Museum of Art, in Hannover, New Hampshire. A campus committee formed to study the murals supported their removal but said they should be conserved as an artifact of the college.
- The murals will be available to faculty members for use in research or in classes. They have been discussed in more than 50 courses since access to them was restricted in 2011.
Dive Insight:
The attention to Dartmouth's murals is one in a string of debates at colleges across the country about the presence of monuments and other symbols that reference an institutional history of systemic racism, sexism and other discrimination.
Another set of murals, in this case at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, may soon be covered while the campus community debates their future, NBC reported. The 1939 Public Works murals contain racialized imagery that many faculty and students say marginalize the region's Native American and Hispanic populations.
Criticized for decades, UNM recently formed a task force to address those concerns. Its recommendation led administrators to suggest to a historic preservation committee that they cover the scenes with curtains for now.
Other universities are making similar changes. Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, recently announced plans to remove the names of controversial figures from campus buildings and programs. The institutions cited their role in oppressing minorities and native culture.
Officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are exploring new locations for Silent Sam, a Confederate monument toppled by students at the start of the academic year. Administrators have until Nov. 15 to come up with a "lawful and lasting plan" for relocation, and they are being urged by faculty and students not to return it to its original prominent location.