Wendell Berry’s lawsuit was dismissed. What happened to UK’s controversial mural?
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A controversial mural at the center of a lawsuit at the University of Kentucky remains in place, nearly two decades after students began calling for its removal.
The mural located in Memorial Hall depicts Black workers, possibly enslaved laborers, planting tobacco and a Native American man holding a tomahawk. Plans to remove the mural were announced in 2020, in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man killed by police.
As of December, however, the mural remains at Memorial Hall.
Black student groups have been calling for its removal for years, with calls first coming from the Student Government Association in 2006, and the university covered the mural with a sheet in 2015. The 1934 work by Ann Rice O’Hanlon has been covered and uncovered several times, and university officials added a plaque with historical context in 2017.
The sign describes the history of the art and the concerns raised over the years about it.
In 2018, artist Karyn Olivier created a work of art for the building designed to add further context to the mural. Olivier added a line from an 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass: “There is not a man under the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.”
When plans to take down the mural in 2020 were announced, Kentucky author Wendell Berry and his wife filed a lawsuit to halt its removal. His wife, Tanya, is the niece of O’Hanlon.
The removal is additionally complicated because the mural is a fresco, painted directly onto the historic 1929 building’s plaster.
In 2022, UK President Eli Capilouto reiterated plans to remove the mural from the building.
“For many, Memorial Hall is an iconic building in the heart of our campus,” Capilouto said at the time. “For many others, it is a space where a mural, in place since the 1930s, depicts in a distorted fashion the way enslaved people and other marginalized peoples were treated in Kentucky.”
The Berrys’ lawsuit was dismissed in 2024 by a judge who also ruled UK must leave the mural in place.
Judge Thomas Wingate granted UK’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit in November 2022, saying the Berrys “lack standing to prosecute this action.” But since removal of the mural would “result in its destruction as it is a fresco — painted on the plaster itself — the Court holds that (UK) shall continue to maintain the status quo of the O’Hanlon Mural.”
At the time the lawsuit was dismissed, university officials said they were still exploring ways to move the mural and reimagine the building as a space for students, though no plans were announced. No costs associated with removing the mural have been released.
UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said recently there are no current plans to remove the mural. UK stopped holding classes and events in Memorial Hall in 2019.
With the addition of new classroom space on campus, UK has “flexibility and time to make thoughtful decisions regarding Memorial Hall,” Blanton said.
“The institution continues to examine next steps for the facility,” Blanton said. “That decision will inform and determine next steps for the mural.”