WOKE

Aug. 28 (UPI) — The U.S. State Department removed a Kehinde Wiley painting from its embassy in the Dominican Republic and wants to sell it after Trump administration officials called it “woke.”

The department is talking with legal representatives to determine whether it can sell Young Artists After Siamesas 1960, which was commissioned with taxpayer funds in 2013 for the Art in Embassies cultural diplomacy program.

U.S. Ambassador Leah Campos posted a video Aug. 11 showing the painting being removed after it was initially covered with a tarp featuring a U.S. flag design.

“Under the Trump administration and my leadership, we are leaving behind globalist and ‘woke’ ideologies to embrace American patriotism and the beauty of our great country,” Campos wrote.

Erin Scavino, director of Art in Embassies, said in a recent interview with former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer that her team had worked to remove the painting. She described it as “very woke” and “aesthetically terrifying.”

The State Department cited comments Wiley made about another of his works and sexual misconduct allegations that the artist has denied, according to The Art Newspaper.

Dominican law would allow physical ownership of the painting to be transferred, but Wiley would retain his intellectual property rights, according to an analysis published by the Dominican news outlet Acento.

Attorney Edwin Espinal Hernández said the Dominican Republic’s copyright law distinguishes between ownership of the physical object and intellectual property rights over the work, Acento reported.

A buyer could own and display the canvas, but could not reproduce it, print it or sell copies without Wiley’s authorization unless the parties expressly agree otherwise.

Dominican law also recognizes an artist’s resale right. If the transaction takes place through a public auction, an exhibition or a professional dealer, Wiley would be entitled to receive at least 2% of the sale price from the seller.

In addition, if the transaction exceeds approximately $12,000, Dominican anti-money laundering law would prohibit a cash payment and require verifiable proof of the transaction.

Wiley created the painting in 2015 in collaboration with Dominican students from the School of Arts and the Altos de Chavón School of Design in La Romana, according to the official documentation from Art in Embassies.

According to the expanded Art in Embassies description, the 107-by-150-inch oil-on-linen painting depicts four local art students in poses inspired by Female Nude (1940) by Celeste Woss y Gil and Siamese Twins (1960) by Gilberto Hernández Ortega.

Wiley gained international recognition after painting President Barack Obama‘s official portrait, which was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in 2018.

The State Department had awarded Wiley a Medal of Arts in 2015 for his contributions to U.S. cultural diplomacy.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida speaks during a roundtable event in March in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the De-Santis-championed Stop WOKE Act violates free speech. File Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo

July 7 (UPI) — A federal panel of appeals court judges ruled Tuesday that the Stop WOKE Act championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis violates the free speech of professors and is a “breathtaking assertion of power.”

The Florida law restricted how professors can teach, especially when speaking about gender and race, in colleges and universities. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled 2-1 to support a 2022 decision that called the law “positively dystopian,” Politico reported.

The court Tuesday went further, saying the act is a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the state’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry — classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.”

“If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it,” the ruling said.

Judge Britt C. Grant wrote the opinion, joined by Judge Charles R. Wilson. Judge Barbara Lagoa, however, wrote a dissent saying the First Amendment “does not compel all viewpoints to be worthy of state-sponsored endorsement.”

The Florida Legislature approved the act, also called the Individual Freedom Act, in 2022. The state has been fighting it in court ever since.

The lawsuits that led to the ruling Tuesday were brought by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a student free-speech group, and the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida and Legal Defense Fund.

FIRE senior attorney Greg Greubel said the decision “means that college remains a place where professors and students are allowed to debate controversial topics — even if politicians disagree with them.”

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday, Politico said. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier praised Lagoa on social media, saying she “may be the best jurist in our country” and should be on the U.S. Supreme Court.