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A California State University Northridge official defended a large, painted mural on campus that includes images of an upside-down American flag and a fang-toothed border patrol agent, telling The College Fix the artwork is protected under the First Amendment.
“As a higher education institution, CSUN has a responsibility to encourage a wide variety of views and to be an educational and public forum for expression of divergent views, including those that some may find distasteful or unpopular,” CSUN spokesman Jeff Noblitt told The College Fix in an email last week.
Noblitt added the mural – a permanent fixture on campus painted by Chicano Studies students in 1999 to commemorate the department’s 30th anniversary – “solely represents the views of the students who created it, not the views of the university.”
FlagBut over the years, the artwork has offended student veterans at the Los Angeles-based public university, including Jason Freudenrich, 36, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq in 2003.