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ACLU, Indigenous artist sue town of Vail, claiming First Amendment violation

Vail cancelled plans for Danielle SeeWalker to be town's 2024 artist in residence after community members protested against painting that related to Palestinians

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Monday, October. 15 on behalf of Danielle SeeWalker, an Indigenous artist whose scheduled June residency with the town of Vail was abruptly cancelled in May after concerns were raised over a piece of artwork she created.
Danielle SeeWalker/Courtesy Photo

In May, the town of Vail abruptly canceled its anticipated 2024 Artist in Residence program with Danielle SeeWalker, a Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta artist whose art incorporates traditional Native American messaging. Yesterday, on Indigenous People’s Day, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the town of Vail on SeeWalker’s behalf for a violation of the First Amendment, which protects free speech.

“It’s the principle of the matter. … It’s really about not having this done to future artists or future people,” SeeWalker said in an interview with the Vail Daily on Tuesday. “Indigenous voices have been censored for generations, and it really just has to stop, and Vail and other government entities need to know that they can’t deny constitutional rights.”

“I will always stand up for what’s right, and I feel like taking this next step is a continued effort on standing up for what’s right,” SeeWalker said.



The town of Vail declined to comment on the lawsuit, in keeping with its policy not to comment on pending or active litigation.

History of the residency cancellation

SeeWalker was supposed to be the town of Vail’s 2024 Artist in Residence, participating in a 10-day residency in June and creating a mural in the Vail Village parking structure, an offer she accepted on Jan. 23, 2024.

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Throughout the spring, all signs pointed toward the town supporting SeeWalker as the residency choice. On March 6, SeeWalker conducted a site visit to the town to prepare for her mural, which was paid for by Vail. On May 6, the town officially announced SeeWalker as the town’s 2024 Artist in Residence.

SeeWalker’s contract was supposed to arrive in May. Instead, on May 8, she received a phone call from Kathleen Halloran, the town’s deputy mayor, and Molly Eppard, the town’s Art in Public Places coordinator, who told SeeWalker that her residency offer had been rescinded.

The residency offer was canceled in relation to a painting that SeeWalker made and posted to her Instagram account on April 18 called “G is for Genocide.” The painting features a Native American woman wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headdress. In the caption, SeeWalker wrote that funds from the sale of the painting would go to the United Nations Crisis Relief Fund for civilians in Palestine. “That particular piece of artwork had nothing to do with the residency,” SeeWalker said.

“That piece was my own personal reflection on identifying and feeling an emotional and historical connection with what happened to my ancestors, even as early as my grandmother, who endured a lot of genocide, and what is happening to people in Gaza,” SeeWalker said. “I don’t feel like it’s overtly political in nature.”

Danielle SeeWalker’s ‘G is for Genocide,’ which was sold to raise funds for the UN Crisis Relief Fund in Gaza. Complaints from Vail residents over the artwork led the town to suspend a residency program with SeeWalker in 2024.
Danielle SeeWalker/Courtesy Photo

The mural SeeWalker had planned for Vail “was definitely nothing related to the ‘G is for Genocide’ piece,” she said. “If people look at my murals, they’re all very much about nature and colors and plant life and Native American symbolism and geometry and geometric symbols, and that’s really the same aesthetics that I was going to be bringing to the town of Vail.”

The lawsuit pulled from the town of Vail’s email correspondence to approximate a timeline and reconstruct the town’s process of deciding to cancel SeeWalker’s residency.

The town first heard from a citizen expressing worry about SeeWalker’s piece on May 6, but held back on responding until the message had been reviewed by the town manager or town attorney.

On May 7, Joel Newman, the rabbi of the B’nai Vail congregation, emailed the town of Vail “expressing his concerns about Vail’s choice to have Ms. SeeWalker as Vail’s Artist in Residence,” the lawsuit said. In his email, Newman wrote that “members of the Jewish community of Vail are extremely unhappy” about the town of Vail supporting SeeWalker following her creation of the “G is for Genocide” piece.

“Less than three hours after the Rabbi’s email, Ms. Eppard said that Vail had to pull Ms. SeeWalker from the residency,” the lawsuit said.

The phone call from Eppard and Halloran on May 8 was the last communication SeeWalker ever received from Vail.

SeeWalker’s perspective

“I felt like this was really a wrongdoing,” SeeWalker said. “Hearing about the residency being so abruptly canceled and not having the opportunity on my end to seek to understand or really offer a perspective and being able to have an opportunity to communicate with the residents who had brought this to the town of Vail’s attention on being offended by my art was just a lost opportunity for sharing a perspective, not only as an artist but as a Native woman.”

When her residency offer was rescinded, SeeWalker’s first instinct was not to go the legal route. When the news broke, she said she heard from several organizations and individuals, including “quite a few law firms,” which brought up that it could be a legal issue. However, SeeWalker said, “I didn’t think that it would really go that direction.”

One of the legal organizations SeeWalker heard from was the American Civil Liberties Union. Though she initially treated their messages like all the other legal arguments, eventually, she said she agreed to a call with them on the basis that “the ACLU is somebody that I respect. I really appreciate what they stand for.” On the call, she learned about the legal perspective. “I guess we are where we are today because of them reaching out, and them explaining where this could lead,” she said.

“As an artist, I know that I was done wrong. I know that I was judged based on one piece of work that had nothing to do with my commitment to Vail, and I was never given the opportunity to share a learned understanding of their perspective on why they were so offended and me offering my perspective on my culture,” SeeWalker said.

Filing the suit on Indigenous Peoples’ Day was a deliberate choice, to enact what the holiday represents. “It represents that we (Indigenous people) are still here and we need to celebrated, that we are contributing, successful members of society, and that we do continue to fight for things and need to have that representation,” SeeWalker said.

Terms of the lawsuit

The lawsuit argued that canceling the residency because of artwork produced outside of the residency and speech posted to social media constitutes a First Amendment violation because Vail cannot “condition its residency opportunity on personal assent with prescribed views on the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

“Government entities are not permitted to award or deny grants based on invidious viewpoint discrimination,” or unfairly discriminating against someone based on their opinions, the lawsuit said.

“Vail canceled Ms. SeeWalker’s residency because of the views Ms. SeeWalker expressed in her ‘G is for Genocide’ artwork,” the lawsuit said. “Vail had no legitimate reason to cancel Ms. SeeWalker’s residency.”

The lawsuit alleged that the cancellation of SeeWalker’s residency “caused Ms. SeeWalker irreparable injury.” The cancellation “caused Ms. SeeWalker emotional distress, shock, and sadness. Ms. SeeWalker experienced the cancellation as a suppression of her views as both an artist and a person of color,” the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, the town of Vail budgeted $10,000, plus materials, for the mural. Last year’s Artist in Residence, Squire Broel, earned $60,000 related to his residency, the lawsuit claimed. SeeWalker was not paid for the residency or the time or resources she expended preparing for the residency. However, “monetary damages alone are inadequate to compensate Ms. SeeWalker for all the harm she suffered as a result of Vail’s cancellation of her residency,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit seeks including declaratory relief, injunctive relief, economic damages and compensatory damages including for “physical and mental pain, humiliation, fear, anxiety, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of liberty, privacy, and sense of security and individual dignity,” and asks for a jury trial on every count possible.


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