VERMONT
Vermont Law School plans to paint over mural deemed racist
SOUTH ROYALTON, Vt. (AP) — Vermont Law School plans to paint over a mural that was originally intended to honor African Americans and abolitionists involved in the Underground Railroad after some school community members said the depictions are offensive, the school said.
Students and alumni have raised concerns about the mural in the student center, which was painted by then-Vermont-based artist Sam Kerson in 1993, VLS president Dean Thomas McHenry said in a email to the school community this week, according to the Valley News.
"The depictions of the African-Americans on the mural are offensive to many in our community and, upon reflection and consultation, we have determined that the mural is not consistent with our School's commitment to fairness, inclusion, diversity, and social justice," McHenry said in the email.
The colorful mural entitled "The Underground Railroad, Vermont and the Fugitive Slave" depicts Africans being forced into slavery and sold at auction, images of John Brown, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and a blond Vermont woman trying to block the view of a bounty hunter looking for fugitives trying to escape slavery on the Underground Railroad.
VLS students Jameson Davis and April Urbanowski said in an email that they have concerns about the mural's accuracy.
"One issue of many, is the fact that the depictions of Black people are completely inaccurate. Regardless of what story is being told overexaggerating Black features is not OK and should not be tolerated. White colonizers who are responsible for the horrors of slavery should not also be depicted as saviors in the same light," they said.
Kerson, 73, who now lives in Quebec, told the Valley News that he had not been told of the decision to paint over the mural and was contacted by Davis last week.
"They wanted to enlist me with the group that wanted to take the mural down, which of course I didn't want to do," he said. He said the mural "is a monument to abolition in Vermont and a description of the people who struggled against slavery, and it is important to our culture."
"To paint it over is outlandish — it's like burning books," he said.
Kerson also painted the "Columbus at the Gates of Paradise" mural in a conference room in the state office complex in Waterbury that drew some criticism. A curtain was sometimes used to cover depiction of topless Indigenous women. The mural was taken down after the complex was heavily damaged by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.
MARYLAND
University sues to block rule on international students
BALTIMORE (AP) — Johns Hopkins University has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration's decision to make international students leave the U.S. if they intend to take classes entirely online starting this fall.
The Baltimore private institution filed the lawsuit Friday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in federal court in the District of Columbia, the Baltimore Sun reported. It argues that the agency's decision "completely upended" the university's reopening plans for the upcoming semester.
ICE notified colleges Monday that international students will be forced to leave the U.S. or transfer to another college if their schools operate entirely online this fall.
New visas will not be issued to students at those schools, and others at universities offering a mix of online and in-person classes will be barred from taking all of their classes online.
The guidance says international students won't be exempt even if an outbreak forces their schools online during the fall term.
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have also filed a lawsuit to prevent federal immigration authorities from enforcing the rule. Neither school plans to offer in-person classes this fall.
About 5,000 international students are enrolled at Johns Hopkins.
The school has plans for hybrid semesters with a mix of in-person and online classes. It also intends to shift to online-only classes after the Thanksgiving break.
The lawsuit characterizes the Trump administration's decision as "arbitrary and capricious" and argues it puts the university in the "untenable dilemma" of either following its reopening plans or attempting to offer in-person instruction to allow international students to remain enrolled.
"The adverse consequences of this sudden displacement are devastating financially and personally," according to the complaint.
NEW JERSEY
Judges reject appeal in double murder case
FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) — An appellate court has rejected the appeal of a New Jersey man who said God told him to kill and dismember his grandmother and his ex-girlfriend more than 15 years ago.
Superior Court judges ruled Friday that 48-year-old Rosario Miraglia missed a deadline to seek reversal of his murder conviction, The Asbury Park Press reported. The judges also ruled there was no merit in his appeal, which argued that his attorney had improperly argued he was insane.
Miraglia is serving two consecutive life terms in the June 2004 slayings of 88-year-old Julia Miraglia and 31-year-old Leigh Martinez. Both women were decapitated and had their hands and feet severed. During his trial, he said he was driving from Newark to Asbury Park, listening to religious tapes, when "a revelation came to me."
The appeal argued that Miraglia had a right to rule out the insanity defense his attorney unsuccessfully argued at his 2008 trial in Monmouth County. Although state and federal decisions following the trial guarantee such a right, the appeals court said they aren't retroactive. And, the judges said, they don't apply in Miraglia's case because he didn't object to the defense during trial and in fact insisted on testifying against the advice of his attorney.
"At trial, defendant asserted that he should be found not guilty because he was Jesus Christ and was on a mission from God when he killed the victims,'' Judges Clarkson Fisher Jr. and Robert J. Gilson wrote. "Alternatively, defendant relied on an insanity defense. The jury rejected defendant's claim of innocence and his affirmative defense of insanity."
Asked during the trial why God would have wanted him to kill the women, Miraglia responded that God didn't owe him an explanation. He also testified that he believed the jurors were the Twelve Apostles who would acquit him.
The state public defender argued that Miraglia was a paranoid schizophrenic who was suffering from delusions. Prosecutors, however, argued that he was faking insanity and made up the religious motive, and that he really killed the women because they had excluded him from their lives.
The judges noted it was the second time Miraglia sought reversal of his convictions and the second time he missed the one-year deadline to file the petitions.
