North Carolina middle school art assignment infuriates parents over sexual imagery

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Sixth-graders in a North Carolina school were instructed to study an image featuring a sexually explicit act as part of an art assignment, enraged parents claim.

Following the commotion, the principal of Kennedy Middle School in Charlotte is vowing to ensure teachers only post vetted images and links onto digital learning platforms for its students, according to WSOC. 

"It was brought to my attention that there were some inappropriate artist images that were inadvertently included in a 6th grade art lesson while the teacher is on maternity leave," Principal Kevin Sudimack said in a statement. "I worked with the art teacher to have the pictures removed from the CANVAS platform." 

The artwork assigned to the class, by Kara Walker, is titled "Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b'tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart." Walker is shown here in front of a portion of that piece, attending the opening reception for the reinstallation of contemporary art from the collection at MOMA on June 29, 2010 in New York, City. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images, File)

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Parent Samantha Davis told WSOC that she was "shocked" to see the artwork as part of her daughter’s curriculum.  

"I understand the topic being appropriate for college and adults," she said. "I don’t find this artist and what she depicts as something age-appropriate for middle school kids to see." 

"To just pull it is nice, that’s great -- but it shouldn’t have been there in the first place," Davis added. 

The artwork, by Kara Walker, is titled "Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b'tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart." 

The artwork was part of an assignment given to students at Kennedy Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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"This work is based on purposeful misreadings of historical texts like ‘Gone With the Wind.’ I wanted to ensure that there would always be this like punch-in-the-gut feeling of culpability in white washing or wishing away the unseemly, icky part of the story, of any story," Walker told the Museum of Modern Art. "But specifically the story that I want to talk about always comes back to an American mythology that involves race, slavery—a sadomasochistic construct that underlies the American history narrative." 

Fox News has reached out to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for further comment.