Allendale — Noah Mullins, the GVSU senior who successfully led the charge to get the artwork taken down the first time around, is determined to do it again. As a Catholic, his motive is personal.
“Using Mary to promote this worldly ideology that is clearly against Catholic teaching, most Christian teaching, protestant branches, orthodox… is blasphemous to the Blessed Mother,” he said.
In September 2024, the art piece hung at the student union building, the Kirkhoff Center. The piece was created by GVSU alumna Irlanda Beltran and said to have been purchased by the university for $1,800.
In her artist summary, Beltran describes her piece entitled Petalos de Cambio (Petals of Change) as addressing issues in Mexico such as “homophobia, gender-based violence, and mental health stigma” that continue to perpetuate “cycles of discrimination and exclusion” and create “barriers to equality and well-being for marginalized individuals.” The mural “seeks to address these pressing issues by harnessing the power of art and reevaluated Catholic teachings to foster a more inclusive society in Mexico…”
Calling the artwork’s depictions of Mary “blasphemous” and “sacrilegious,” students reached out to GVSU leadership who met with them last October. School officials told students that the purpose of their time together was for the students to feel heard and understood, but that the artwork was not coming down.
At one of the meetings, a student asked the officials if there were an “artwork of you with an X through your face and a gun pointed at you how would you feel?” No one answered.
In his research to convince the leadership to remove the artwork, Mullins perused GVSU’s art gallery website and found nothing even close to Beltran’s piece—no examples of the Star of David or images of Mohammed being desecrated. “In this age,” Mullins said, “the only faith acceptable to attack from the perspective of the left is Christianity.”
In December, Mullins presented leadership with evidence of Jesus’ mother Mary being Jewish, pointing out that this artwork would also be considered an antisemitic attack. He also was able to present her as being Muslim, according to the Quran.
Next Mullins went to lawmakers, Reps. Luke Meerman and Jamie Thompson. Rep. Thompson tweeted about the situation in January, which led to more media coverage, including interviews with the local news. A media storm ensued.
In an interview with Stephen Kokx of Lifesite News, Kokx told Mullins the protest would be an excellent issue for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to take on, since she was launching an anti-Christian bias task force. “Because it’s an attack on people of religious belief,” Kokx said.
On Feb. 5, the media attention, pressure from elected officials, and student protests convinced GVSU officials to remove the artwork from the Kirkhof Center and place it into storage. However, Assistant Vice President of Communications Chris Knape said the Grand Valley Art Museum would be relocating the piece “where it can be presented with greater context.”
Throughout the ordeal, there have been professors who haven’t appeared to view students of faith as worthy of inclusion, though the university touts being champions of Inclusion and Equity. After the installation came down last spring, Professor Heather Moody took her Cultural Geography class on a field trip to the storage facility for an assignment on the mural.
Mullins said that one of the students “had an encounter with the Holy Spirit saying there was an evil spirit within the installation. He left and the Holy Spirit told him when it was safe to go back. When he went back the class had just wrapped up, and the installation was gone.”
Another GVSU Professor, Brett Colley, sent an open letter co-signed by 20 of his colleagues to the student newspaper as well as Catholics in the community. The letter outlines why he believes the artwork shouldn’t be protested.
The letter reads in part:
“It should be noted here that the national Catholic organization, TFP Student Action, who circulated a petition in support of the mural protesters, are openly, aggressively anti-queer… I find it hard not to see the protest as part of a larger, troubling national trend wherein some belonging to historically/statistically majority groups (ex. white, male, cisgender, Christian) express feelings of oppression, just as others from historically marginalized communities enjoy progress toward greater representation and visibility… It is one thing to direct your ire at GVSU administrators, but to publicly expose a peer to the vitriol of self-righteous zealots is, in my opinion, immoral…”
In addition to the letter, Colley is quoted by the Grand Rapids Institute for Democracy as referencing the Mary figure as “it.” Colley says: “Students claim the mural is offensive to them due to the fact that in one of the three panels a modified depiction of Our Lady of Guadalupe… has an X drawn over its head and a gun floating near its feet.” Mullins noted that Colley’s referencing Mary as “it” is a “great example of the contempt for many Christians on campus…”
“In one way you could almost say this is a student vs professor battle,” Mullins said. “Of course it’s God vs satan, good vs evil. But on the ground here, we’re getting push back from the professors who are supposed to be educating and guiding us, stewarding us. And they’re not doing that.”
In addition to the actions of these professors, the GVSU student paper spoke against the university in an article entitled, “GV commitment to diversity falls flat with artwork removal.” The writer asks readers whether the university’s action of removing the artwork “demonstrates an institution willing to stand with marginalized students in the face of attacks on diversity and inclusion.”
All considered, the removal of the installation did not appear permanent. Mullins and those who stood with him were not satisfied with the art piece being tucked away in storage waiting for the “greater context” to be found. Mullins and fellow students petitioned the university to sell the piece. And they weren’t the only ones.
Tradition, Family, Property gathered almost 13,000 signatures from across the country and across the world asking the university not to reinstall the mural. Mullins said there were even people in the community who offered to buy the artwork and pay what the university had paid. GVSU declined the offers, vowing instead to redisplay the piece.
“The question I would simply ask GVSU, or anybody with common sense, is: Where on campus, or where on earth, is a ‘better context’ to attack people of faith?” Mullins said. “And to that I feel they cannot find an answer because there is no answer other than, there is no place to put this installation where there won’t be an attack on Christians or Muslims.”
A few months later, at the end of the semester, the university answered Mullins’ question. The location of “greater context” apparently is Zumberge Hall, GVSU’s administration building. And more specifically, the installation is on the third floor, which is the Office of the Provost.
Mullins’ response?
“What it shows to me is that the highest levels of the university endorse this. It’s not proper context at all.” Mullins went on to say that students are required to have an appointment to enter the provost office. “So, they’re really trying to hide that they want to keep this installation up,” he said.
Now that the art is reinstalled, Mullins is protesting once again. And his support is growing. He said that many students, not just Catholics, are upset that a religion “known across the world” is being attacked like this and wonder which beliefs are next.
Community support is also growing as those who support the university through tax dollars and/or donor dollars are not happy. Though Mullins will graduate in December, the protest will continue with other students taking the lead.
“This issue is deep to us,” Mullins said. “And is one we will protest legally and within the code of student conduct. We will abide by all rules and all rights, but we will protest as is our right to do so by the Constitution.”
Mullins has said repeatedly that he wishes no ill will toward any of GVSU’s leadership or to the artist; in fact, he prays for them. However, Mullins and the other protestors will not quit in their resistance until they know the artwork is sold. Putting it in storage is not the solution. They know the university will pull the mural back out once they graduate.
For those wanting to support Mullins in his effort to have the installation removed, he suggests contacting GVSU leadership. And to not cease. Contact them in continual ways, throughout successive weeks.
What made the effort succeed before was the continual pressure. Mullins encourages respectfulness, but also a firmness against what the leadership is doing by endorsing the artwork and an insistence in having the installation removed.
Krista Yetzke is a native of Ottawa County. A jeep-driving, guitar-playing wife, mom, and everyday adventurer, Krista was raised on the love of Jesus, the great outdoors, the arts, the value of frugality, and the beauty of food as medicine.
This story first appeared in the Hollander. Subscribe to their newsletter for great coverage of West Michigan.
