ACLU of Colorado says Vail violated Sioux Tribe artist's rights in canceled residency over Gaza painting

A Colorado artist and member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is suing the Town of Vail with the ACLU's help after the town canceled her position as an artist in residency.

Danielle SeeWalker says the Town of Vail violated her First Amendment rights by terminating her position after one of her past works compared the plight of Palestinians in Gaza to that of Indigenous people in the U.S. brought objections locally, including from members of a local Jewish congregation.

"I just thought, 'Wow, this is shocking that I can be canceled based on one thing,' and the longer I stirred with it and the longer I spoke to other people, this, Danielle, is a First Amendment issue," SeeWalker told CBS News Colorado on Monday. 

Early this year, SeeWalker, a Denver-based Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta artist, was chosen by the town as its summer 2024 artist-in-residence, which would have had her paint a mural in Vail, lead hands-on art instruction and have her work displayed at the town library. Now she's suing in federal court.

In May, the town canceled that residency, saying in a May 14 Facebook post, in part, "Our decision not to move forward with SeeWalker's residency was not made in a vacuum; after releasing her name in an announcement, community members, including representatives from our local faith-based communities, raised concerns to town staff around SeeWalker's recent rhetoric on her social media platform about the Hamas-Israel war. As public representatives we will not support messaging that targets one group of residents or guests over another as we are a welcoming and inclusive community for all."

The "rhetoric" the town mentions in its post appears to reference a March Instagram post by SeeWalker of a painting she did depicting a woman in a keffiyeh -- a popular headwrap worn in the Middle East -- with the title "G is for Genocide." The Instagram post's caption included the title of the work and went on to say "Some days, I have overwhelming grief + guilt for walking around privileged while people in Gaza are suffering for no reason."

Rabbi Joel Newman of the B'nai Vail Congregation emailed Town officials expressing concerns about SeeWalker's residency and later spoke at two town council meetings on her hiring.

"We saw it as antisemitic," Newman told CBS News Colorado. "I think she was using the comparison of the Native American world to what Israel is doing to Palestine is just wrong. She doesn't get it."

"I come from a lineage of genocide here in this country," SeeWalker said. "I do understand what it is."

A debate over the characterization of the death toll in Gaza has occupied academic and human rights advocacy spaces over the last year. Some scholars, human rights advocates and organizations -- including Jewish ones -- have characterized Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide while others, such as the Anti-Defamation League, said in October 2023 that "in no way do Israeli policies and actions meet this legal threshold."

Over 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes, shellings, and raids in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the United Nations, which cites data from the Gaza Ministry of Health. The UN also reports over 70,000 homes or housing units have been destroyed and estimates that 1.9 million out of Gaza's 2.14 million people have been displaced.

In response to a request for comment from CBS News Colorado, a spokesman for the town said it hadn't received the lawsuit yet but that "generally, our policy is not to comment on any pending or active litigation."

SeeWalker and her legal team are seeking unspecified monetary damages. The case was assigned to a judge but no hearings have been set as of Tuesday.

Andy McNulty, a civil rights attorney with the Newman McNulty law firm who's representing SeeWalker, says her art, which she created outside of her residency, isn't something the town can police and in canceling her residency over it, McNulty says, the town violated her rights.

"The town could have said 'hey, you can't write about this in your art for the town,' but on her own free time, she's allowed to say what she wants," he told CBS News Colorado. "She's entitled to say what she wants about (Gaza). That's the beauty of this country and what separates us from dictatorships across the globe."