The second Trump administration has not even begun, but here at East Tennessee State University, the administration is already bootlicking. 

For the twelfth year, the university’s Reece Museum has hosted — but crucially, not curated — the FL3TCH3R Exhibit, “an international juried exhibit focused on socially and politically engaged art.” While the exhibit has by nature always included controversial and provocative works, this year several Republican elected officials have demanded the exhibition be closed, including two of Tennessee’s U.S. Representatives, Tim Burchett and Diana Harshbarger. 

The painting which received the most attention is Joel Gibbs’ “Evolution,” which he told WJHL-TV is a response to fascism. The piece depicts a Nazi swastika turning into a Christian cross behind a portrait of Republican U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson — a noted Christian nationalist. 

Republicans being censorious scolds is nothing new at ETSU. My own experiences as a graduate student here tell me that this campus is run by, or at least for, the far-right. Left-wing speech is regularly censored if not silenced, while right-wing speech is coddled and amplified. 

This problem predates my time here. In 2021, the basketball coach resigned after state legislators raised a stink about his players kneeling during the national anthem in protest of racial discrimination. In 2023, when students organized a drag show in protest of a proposed ban on drag performances in the Volunteer State, the university moved the show to an out-of-the-way venue and restricted access to those over 18. This, officials said at the time, was an effort “to honor legislative intent” even though the law being protested had yet to go into effect and would later be struck down as unconstitutional.

During this same semester, ETSU’s Turning Point USA chapter welcomed Michael Knowles to campus shortly after he declared his wish to eradicate transgenderism. He was, unlike drag queens, welcome on the main campus. So was Riley Gaines, the female swimmer who gained fame campaigning against transgender women in competitive sports. 

Frankly, I don’t really have a problem with either Knowles or Gaines speaking on campus. I believe strongly in the First Amendment and in the contest of ideas. I don’t particularly care to hear either of them speak — I’ve been to enough right-wing events as a journalist to not want to go in my personal time — but if others do, that’s their right. Crack on with it.

I do have a problem with censorship, though. And I have a much bigger problem with blatant double standards and inherent unfairness. 

Consider the response of President Brian Noland to the controversy over this painting. He forced the Reece Museum to close on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, ostensibly because it “did not have adequate staff to ensure the exhibit could open safely in light of the controversy,” Hyperallergic reported. 

But when I visited the museum the following week, no additional staff members nor security were present. If there was a security threat, the university seemed not to be taking it very seriously. What was present, however, was a curtain obscuring the exhibit. Now, visitors have to sign a waiver to see it. 

The university spokeswoman did not return multiple requests for comment from 100 Days in Appalachia. But Campus Reform, a right-wing website promoting censorship on college campuses, did get a statement from Noland. “After consultation with legal counsel, I cannot, in good faith, censor this exhibit because doing so would run counter to the duties of the Office of the President to uphold the laws of the State of Tennessee,” he said. 

Noland gave “careful consideration” to closing the exhibit, he said, and only kept it open because state and federal law requires him to. Well, quite. Closing the exhibit would have been an obvious violation of the First Amendment. That Noland even considered it is alarming, and points to just how far he and ETSU administrators are willing to kowtow to right-wing pressure to censor left-wing speech. 

ETSU is a state university, meaning it is an arm of the government. What Noland essentially has done is forced anyone who wants to engage with left-wing works of art to have their names collected by a state government which has openly tried to censor this work. 

“This is part of a fascist takeover of ETSU,” I wrote on my waiver. And I believe that to be true. 

You see, the university forced the Reece Museum to put up a sign at the entrance to the gallery that reads, in part, that it “explores sensitive and potentially divisive themes, including… Christophobia.” Some works, the sign warns, “may be construed as hate speech.”

I’m not the only one upset about this. The nonpartisan National Coalition Against Censorship and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression issued a joint statement condemning the decision by university administrators to censor the FL3TCH3R Exhibit. “The ‘content warning’… is nothing but prejudicial,” the statement reads. “Instituted in the wake of vehement attacks on the show from elected state and federal officials, the warning appears to adopt the point of view of those officials, and impose it upon all viewers.” 

Having seen the exhibit, I wholly agree. Even if Gibbs’ painting is hate speech, the fact that the university is requiring it to be hidden away behind thick black curtains and for everyone to sign a waiver and read a trigger warning is a gross double standard considering no such restrictions are placed on right-wing speech on this campus. 

Gaines and Knowles were allowed to speak without any release forms being required or trigger warnings provided. Furthermore, consider reporting from the East Tennessean, the university’s own student-run newspaper, on a group which two years ago plastered a plaza at the heart of campus with graphic images of aborted fetuses and other highly controversial and provocative anti-abortion images. Students had no choice but to see such speech as they walked to and from class, yet no trigger warning was required. No censorship occurred. The group returned earlier this year and, again, were allowed to show their horrific images unobstructed by Brian Noland or ETSU.

The same is true when far-right preachers come to campus, standing in the middle of that same plaza, often with loudspeakers or megaphones, screaming about the sinfulness of homosexuality and that gay people are going to burn in hell. Gay students can’t avoid hearing it, but the university thinks that’s fine. 

Gay students, Brian Noland and ETSU reason, have no right not to be offended. Christian nationalists and far-right lawmakers, on the other hand, must be coddled. Their reporters get lengthy statements about how horrific Noland finds left-wing art and how he would love to shut down left-wing speech but for that pesky First Amendment. Their students get to bring anti-LGBTQ speakers to campus with the support of the administration. 

Try to organize a drag show, though, and they’ll try to force you off campus. Hang a painting critical of Christian nationalism and they’ll censor it. The double standard is glaringly obvious. 

Gibbs characterizes his painting as a commentary on politicians “twisting Christianity to authoritarian ends,” Hyperallergic reports. The irony is that is exactly what is happening here! Brian Noland, Diana Harshbarger, Tim Burchett, and every Republican lawmaker who complained about this piece and demanded that the exhibit be closed is engaging in exactly the kind of censorship the artist is criticizing. 

ETSU’s censorship is more than shameful. It is un-American.

Skylar Baker-Jordan is 100 Days in Appalachia’s Contributing Editor for Community Engagement. Support his work and our continued coverage of politics in the region by donating here.