California Art School Censors One Student's Work Citing it as "Potentially Defamatory"

The answer to what defines art remains a clearly subjective thing even after the Supreme Court created the S.L.A.P.S. test decades ago. What inspires one, may end up offending another.

However, the country's art schools have always been considered much more liberal when it comes to allowing their students to experiment with art and create things completely void of any boundaries or rules (other than those guidelines set out by a classroom instructor).

This of course makes the incident at San Francisco's Art Institute of California surprising.

A video game art and design student's work was recently censored by school officials on the basis that the work was not reviewed by officials before it went to print and contained "potentially defamatory" work.

The work in question was printed in the student magazine Mute/Off and was a 10-page piece about three black men who go on a shooting and raping spree across a city - all the while speaking in slang. At the end of the story, you come to find out that this story is actually a video game being played by three white boys living in suburbia.

The essay was titled "Homicide" and ran in the issue that came out on Dec. 6. However, the publication was pulled the same day that the issue hit newsstands on the basis that it had not been approved for publication.

As it stands, there is a California student free expression law that allows students to print material and they do not have to have the consent of school officials - even if that publication is funded by the school.

Apparently, this law is not being considered in this particular matter. In fact, when one of the professors stood up to protest the censoring of the magazine, he was told by the school that he would not be needed for the following semester.

The school is saying that the content has the potential to defame - although it is hard to see who could have been defamed unless school officials are referring to defamation of a race.