A long-running exhibition of political artwork at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) was not invited to return to the school this year after a wave of right-wing backlash, including from a Tennessee chapter of Turning Point USA. The “Fletcher Exhibit of Social and Politically Engaged Art,” held annually at ETSU’s Reece Museum since 2013, came under intense scrutiny from conservatives during and after the November 2024 presidential election. For over a decade, the show has been organized by the family of Fletcher Dyer, who was an art student at ETSU when he died in a tragic accident in 2009. Months before the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, the 2024 iteration of the Fletcher Exhibit triggered condemnation from the organization’s chapter at ETSU for artworks that criticized conservative figures like Kirk and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. In November 2024, elected Republican officials in Tennessee demanded that certain artworks be removed from the ...