A mural in Willow Hall — the one depicting several military men and one blond beach babe — has been edited to reflect a time of political correctness, gender equality and women’s rights. At least that’s the image on the surface; it doesn’t take a great deal of work to rub away that first layer of paint and see what the inner layers of this ordeal involve.

In question are the true motivation of the complaints filed about the mural and the hesitancy of campus officials to take any sort of action. What’s most irksome, however, is that the mural was altered at all, as if slapping some paint over part of the mural cleanses anything, as if the voices of a few students justifies whitewashing the First Amendment.

The mural was painted on Schaefer House of Willow Hall —ÿa men’s floor in a building that houses both men and women, including two co-ed houses —ÿin 1984, and seemed to bother not a soul for most of its time. That is, until the end of last semester, when several students in a Women’s Studies 201 that required students to take part in activism course wrote letters to the Iowa State Daily and the Department of Residence alerting DOR officials to their dissatisfaction.

Rather than step into the middle of the situation, Department of Residence Director Randy Alexander instructed the involved parties — the students who wrote the letter and the Schaefer House cabinet — to discuss among themselves possible solutions. In the end, however, the decision was to rub out the image of the woman in the mural.

The woman seemed content enough to be in the arms of a muscular man — she was all smiles. She was part of an expression that the residents of Schaefer House didn’t have a problem with, and the entire mural was tucked into an out-of-the-way kitchenette.

The mural was expression and, regardless of what it expressed, didn’t need to be altered. It didn’t offend anybody — it simply became the focus of a class project that forced students to take part in activism. It’s disappointing that something so contradictory as forced activism could lead to a decision to alter artwork.

The only offensive elements of the mural came from the juvenile and tacky writing on the wall, not the mural itself. Surrounding the woman in the mural were the words “tool,” “roofies” and “date-raper extraordinairre.” Immediately after the Women’s Studies 201 complaint was filed, the house cabinet removed these, however.

Painting over part of the mural was silly. The true motivation for these complaints should have been scrutinized: it was forced activism, not genuine feelings. Painting over the mural solves nothing. While the politically correct paintbrush was out, perhaps those that decided to alter the mural should have taken a stab at rewriting the First Amendment to include a footnote that free speech only holds when nobody is offended.

Editorial Board: Cavan Reagan, Amber Billings, Ayrel Clark, Charlie Weaver