Censorship at Winthrop University

Mark Hamilton, a faculty colleague at Winthrop University, recently has been having a bit of friction with University Relations (the PR arm of Winthrop). Seems he thought his artwork images ought to be distributed by University Relations' enewsletter.

University Relations said it would distribute information about his artwork, but not the artwork itself. Their reasoning: some high school students (prospective Winthrop enrollees) get the enewsletter and Hamilton's artwork (which includes nudity) would be inappropriate for such a young, vulnerable audience.

Censorship of an artist's work or is this something else?

Here, in part, is what Hamilton recently said:

"This censorship by University Relations extends to not only written and or spoken word but to works of Art. This past year my wife and I had some works on display at an exhibition at USC in Columbia. I notified University Relations and they asked for details and images for University Publications. The work was submitted to University Relations and I was told that they would run a blurb but no images since the images contained nudity. It seems funny that USC would publish them in a beautiful 4-color brochure, my work has been published in over fifty international publications yet I am censored by my parent institution....."

Ok, here's my take.

If it walks like a censor and it quacks like a censor and it smells like a censor, I'd say, it's (well, you can finish the sentence...)

Long live collegiate artists like Hamilton who remind us of the preciousness and fragility our First Amendment freedoms.

The above accompanying photo, by the way, can be found at Jennifer and Mark Hamilton's Web site.