I’m not a Colorado native, despite having lived here most of my life and having family going back generations here, because I was born at the Air Force base in Hampton, Virginia, during the Vietnam conflict.

My father, who served in Vietnam, tells of how he volunteered for the Civic Action Program teaching English to local children in Da Nang. One evening after class, a girl told my father not to show up for the next class. My father, at first not understanding, assured her that he’d be there. But she insisted and conveyed to my father that his life was in danger. I probably owe my existence to the warning of that Vietnamese girl.

I feel some distant connection, then, to the people from Vietnam who immigrated to Colorado and elsewhere in the States to escape Communist oppression.

Rocky Mountain PBS shows a photo of Denver’s Vietnam war memorial in Little Saigon representing an American and South Vietnamese soldier. Father Joseph Dang told PBS that the men “are arm in arms, fighting against the communists before 1975.” The memorial “is a gesture immortalizing those who have lost their life in the Vietnam War and those who fled for the sake of freedom,” Dang said.

“After the fall of Saigon, Vietnamese refugees, immigrants and community leaders settled along Denver’s Federal Boulevard [between Alameda and Mississippi], creating a Little Saigon that continues to thrive 50 years later,” PBS summarizes.

Now History Colorado, in partnership with Colorado Asian Pacific United, has a year-long exhibit celebrating Little Saigon.

And that should be the end of story; go see the exhibit, visit Little Saigon, and reflect on how immigrants make Colorado a more vibrant place to live.

But, unfortunately, news about the exhibit has been overshadowed by controversy regarding an artwork not included in the exhibit because of its divisive political messages. For the rest of this article, I’m going to discuss this controversy. But I urge readers not to lose sight of the main story here about the resilience of Little Saigon and the people who live and work there.

History Colorado as government entity

Given that allegations of censorship regarding the artwork in question have come up, the first thing to evaluate is whether History Colorado is a government agency. “Censorship” is a concept that applies to government action, not private action. If government bans a book, that’s censorship; if a private social media company of its own accord blocks commentary on its own services, that is not censorship.

The organization’s “about” page states: “Established in 1879, History Colorado is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization and an agency of the State of Colorado under the Department of Higher Education.” The governor appoints History Colorado’s board of directors. State statutes govern the organization.

John Wenzel reports for the Denver Post, “History Colorado is a state agency under the Colorado Department of Higher Education, with about half of its $40 million annual budget for last year coming from limited gaming revenues, according to its most recent annual report.”

So, yes, History Colorado is a government entity in every way that matters. So then the question becomes, did History Colorado censor the artwork in question by excluding it from the exhibit? I don’t think the case is the slam-dunk that the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado presume. The case does point to the inherent rights violations of government-funded speech, an issue that most commentators ignore.

The censorship accusations

In her November 3 article for Denverite, Sandy Battulga lays out the basic facts. History Colorado commissioned three paintings from Denver artist Madalyn Drewno that were to be part of the Little Saigon exhibit. Two of the paintings (shown by Denverite) show images and were not controversial. A third painting as originally proposed by Drewno showed two women sitting in chairs and was titled, “Future Generations.”

The painting that Drewno delivered was very different. It still featured the two women, but the title was changed to “None of Us Are Free Until All of Us Are Free,” and it conveyed numerous explicitly political messages. It included the text, “Sudan Stands with Palestine,” “Congo Is Not for Sale,” “Bennet Funds Genocide” (next to a photo of Sen. Michael Bennet), “No ICE,” and “ICE Out of Little Saigon.” The painting also shows Sen. John Hickenlooper with dollar signs over his eyes and Gov. Jared Polis with a red handprint over his face.

Drewno pulled a bait-and-switch by delivering a very different artwork from what she originally proposed, and one highly politically charged. Accusing a sitting U.S. Senator and current candidate for governor of funding genocide, and by implication accusing Israel of committing genocide, is no light charge. The revised artwork obviously is not in the exhibit’s spirit of celebrating Little Saigon; it is an instance of the artist attempting to hijack the exhibit to air her personal political grievances. Any reasonable person can easily see why the team at History Colorado was taken aback.

But the question remains: Given that History Colorado commissioned the artwork as originally proposed, did the organization’s rejection of the artwork as delivered constitute censorship?

The three organizations accusing History Colorado of censorship imply that Drewno’s rights were violated, but they completely ignore the fact that forcing taxpayers who disagree with Drewno’s political messages to nevertheless help finance the display of those messages would violate the rights of those taxpayers.

Everyone has the right to freedom of speech, not just Drewno, and the right to freedom of speech entails the right not to speak and not to materially support ideas and expressions that one finds disagreeable or abhorrent. Whether or not History Colorado violated Drewno’s rights by excluding her painting, by displaying the artwork History Colorado certainly would have violated the rights of those forced to fund the display who did not wish to do so. When will NCAC, FIRE, or the ACLU express the slightest concern for the rights of the people forced to pay the tab?

And this gets to the fundamental problem with government-sponsored speech: It inherently violates people’s rights. The solution is as simple as it is politically unpalatable: Stop government from sponsoring speech. In this case, History Colorado should be converted to a completely private entity totally cut off from tax dollars. But we all know that will not happen, because hardly anyone actually cares about people’s freedom of speech in any robust way.

Maybe you’d reply, “Most of what History Colorado presents is not inherently political.” To that I say, nonsense. Any presentation of history is necessarily ideological. I say this as someone who loves History Colorado and has spent many hours wandering its halls: History Colorado has a pervasive leftist bias that frequently shows up in most of its exhibits.

Don’t just take my word for it. On the organization’s “about” page, under its “Land Acknowledgment,” you can find its document, “Anti-Racism Grounding Virtues,” which says, among other things, that the museum and its employees “are shaped by and contribute to . . . racialized systems” and that they will seek to “name and address past and current structural racism, and transform systems.” One can be against racism without believing that modern America is pervasively racist.

But I still have not answered the question: Did History Colorado censor Drewno?

Bogus claims of campaign limits

The ACLU reproduces the three organizations’ joint letter of November 3. According to that letter and to communications from History Colorado that I’ve seen, History Colorado representatives argued, among other things, “that the painting’s critical portrayal of current political figures would represent a violation of Fair Campaign Practices Act (FCPA).

Correspondence delivered to Drewno suggests that her painting could ‘influence
voters,’ thereby putting HCC at legal risk.” History Colorado also raised concerns about the Hatch Act and the IRS ban on political campaigning for 501c3 organizations.

I agree with the response of the letter: “This is not a credible legal argument, and would permit public institutions to broadly censor critical or political art in violation of the First Amendment. The FCPA indicates that the government may not make direct or indirect contributions to a candidate running for office. . . . The artwork was not given, directly nor indirectly, to any particular candidate. Nor was the artwork submitted or chosen for the purpose of promoting any particular candidate’s campaign.”

Although Bennet is running for governor and Hickenlooper is running for Senate, messages about them constitute only a small part of the artwork, and anyway just criticizing political figures is not the same as campaigning. So I agree this argument by History Colorado is bunk.

At the same time, it’s not totally crazy that someone would have tried to lodge a campaign complaint had History Colorado presented the piece. The campaign laws are sufficiently ambiguous and intrusive that they stress the boundaries of freedom of speech. Still, I think any such potential complaint would have been rejected.

Yet, as Battulga reports, “According to attorney Martha Tierney, who is an expert on campaign finance law, the museum . . . may have needed to report the display of the artwork as a potential act of electioneering communications to the Secretary of State.” Which goes to illustrate the insanity and arbitrariness of aspects of the campaign laws.

The bait-and-switch problem

No one doubts that, had History Colorado commissioned the painting in the form it was delivered, and then rejected the painting out of nervousness over the political messaging, that would have at least constituted a violation of contract, and plausibly an act of censorship.

But it is ludicrous to hold that a tax-funded museum or cultural center never may reject a work that varies from what was promised. Consider: If Drewno had instead delivered a painting that contained only the text, “F*** Trump,” and History Colorado had rejected that work, we would not now be arguing whether History Colorado censored Drewno. No one would have taken such a claim remotely seriously. To my mind, the actual case, in which the delivered work does vary dramatically from what was contracted, is sufficiently similar to the hypothetical case to fall within the same reasoning. If that’s right, then this was not a case of censorship.

History Colorado necessarily is highly selective in what it presents. Why is History Colorado hosting a Little Saigon exhibit, rather than, say, a “Voices of Liberty” exhibit featuring Colorado’s libertarians? The state has a rich libertarian tradition, and Colorado is the birthplace of the Libertarian Party. I’ll hold my breath waiting for History Colorado to organize that exhibit and invite me to participate in it. If History Colorado is censoring Drewno by not including one of her three paintings (she then withdrew the other two), is it not censoring me all the more by not even inviting my work into the museum at all? I’m being oppressed!

If we’re going to allow tax-funded museums and the like, then we must accept that those institutions necessarily will be selective in what they display. And it would be idiotic to cry “censorship” every time a museum failed to include something that we might prefer.

At the same time, History Colorado ought not have been surprised when Drewno delivered a politically charged piece. Her web site emphasizes that she works in “visual journalism” and “editorial” content, and she features messages such as “Free Palestine” and “Ceasefire Now.” No one can doubt that Drewno’s stunt was enormously successful in terms of drawing media attention to her work and her views. Many more people have seen Drewno’s painting (or at least images of it) because History Colorado “censored” it.

Drewno’s next campaign

The end of Wenzel’s article caught my attention: “Drewno is looking to create a grassroots exhibition of artworks that were either censored by or rejected by government institutions. She wants to send the message that artists don’t need the validation of public institutions to speak freely while challenging systems of power and oppression.”

I may not agree with all of her views but I certainly agree with that, and I admire Drewno’s gumption. In an alternate reality in which History Colorado organizes its “Voices of Liberty” exhibit, perhaps it will invite Drewno to submit something for that as well.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to see the Little Saigon exhibit and visit Little Saigon. Those stories are part of the fabric of Colorado.

Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.