School Panel Upsets Peace Mural Veto

A rainbow mural festooned with the message “Peace Please” will go forward at Washington Elementary School after school trustees rescinded a veto of the project.

After almost an hour of impassioned pleas, both from parents at the 84% Latino school and peace activists Tuesday, San Diego city schools trustees directed Supt. Tom Payzant to let painting of the proposed mural proceed as part of the district’s Young at Art program.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s the right of the parents to decide,” said Trustee John de Beck. “It’s not anti-war, it’s pro-peace and that’s not the same. Let’s just say, put up the mural, and go on with life.”

The controversy arose after the school’s principal, with the advice of the school district’s attorney, vetoed the proposal because it would have been unveiled on Jan. 14, the day before the United Nations deadline for Iraq to end its occupation of Kuwait.

Students had come up with the mural after artist Mario Torero had talked with them about issues of brotherhood, multi-culturalism, and other issues of uniting the world. Parents and teachers approved the plan, but Principal Cecilia Fernandez then developed second thoughts about having what school officials called a “political statement” on a public school wall.

Parents in the working-class neighborhood along Interstate 5 north of downtown complained bitterly Tuesday that no one ever came back to them and explained why the mural was suddenly canceled.

“It’s an affront to the community and to the children,” PTA president Alma Quiroz told trustees. “The children, in their innocence about the world, they ask for peace. Since when is ‘Peace Please’ a political statement? Do we not have a voice? Does our opinion not count?”

Riley School Principal Ernie McCray said that “war, what can I say, it sucks, it’s the most horrible bit of human relating you can have. These children, with their mural, are trying to take the initiative for all of humankind . . . a chance to make art a real important part of expressing themselves, of thinking critically.”

After Washington teacher Jane Day said that some teachers had second thoughts because they believed that the artist was “using our children for his own agenda,” Torero called her a liar and pointed to works at several other schools where he has always involved children in the planning.

Latino activist Susan Chavez, a member of the district’s Mexican-American community advisory committee, charged that people like Day treat Latino parents and children as second-class citizens, despite district statements “that it wants more parent participation.”

In the end, board members agreed with De Beck and board president Shirley Weber, who said that the controversy over the date had passed, and “it’s time to move forward, it would be nice to do a mural at this point.

“I mean, we’re not talking about something X-rated, where you have nude people doing unnatural things,” Weber said.

Payzant conceded gracefully but nevertheless chided the board for not considering what he believes is the larger issue of how to balance artistic freedom with the need for public institutions to draw the line between “an appropriate (piece of art) or something inappropriate.”

Under the Young at Art program, artists are assigned to various schools to work with students on murals, individual project or other activities intended both to teach fundamentals and to improve the environment of schools and their neighborhoods through a permanent piece of art. Most of the projects involve brotherhood or similar universal themes among children.

The $3.75-million program is funded by philanthropist Muriel Glick.