The decision to cancel a solo exhibition featuring anti-ICE art at the University of North Texas art school was an “institutional directive,” Dean Karen Hutzel said in newly leaked transcripts of a faculty meeting. First reported by the Denton Record-Chronicle, the transcripts show Hutzel declining to identify the directive’s source while warning colleagues to expect a “media storm.”The College of Visual Arts and Design (CVAD) at the University of North Texas made national headlines earlier this month after abruptly canceling a solo exhibition by artist Victor “Marka27” Quiñonez, who quickly alleged censorship. The decision sparked a student protest against university leadership and prompted an open letter from UNT faculty demanding transparency about why the show was shut down.In the leaked transcripts, Hutzel reportedly told employees that while the school’s administration might survive the reputational fallout, the college itself could become a target of elected officials with the power to allocate—or withhold—state funding. Amid escalating ideological clashes over university programs, Republican lawmakers in Texas can wield the budget to eliminate faculty and administrative positions and cut academic offerings, as seen recently at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.Hutzel also cautioned faculty and staff against making public remarks and urged them to speak carefully with students, warning that their comments could be recorded and circulated online. She said the university’s brand strategy and communications team would soon issue an approved statement and added that she did not plan to speak to the press.During the meeting, a CVAD department official reportedly asked Hutzel whether this meant UNT’s legal team would decline to represent faculty members, despite their constitutional right to free speech.Hutzel replied, “I don’t believe the university is going to deploy its legal counsel to protect an individual faculty member. I don’t think we’ve seen that elsewhere, either. I’m just being honest. It’s not an absolute answer, but that’s how I understand it.”She then told faculty that university policies “are violated constantly” at present, and that professors and staff should not regard them as fixed or inviolable.“For UNT, the stakes are high in that, if you’re paying attention to the news, you may have seen what’s happened at, for instance, Texas A&M, and UT in Austin, and the leadership shifts that have happened there,” she said. “And the new presidential leaders that have come into those institutions, and the programs that are now coming out of them are being canceled by those institutions. … UNT is very vulnerable to a similar situation.”News of the closure and cancelation of Quiñonez’s show at UNT’s CVAD Gallery, which had debuted at the Boston University Art Galleries last fall, was first reported in early February. The exhibition reportedly opened on February 3 but was closed shortly thereafter.The canceled exhibition was titled “Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá”—“neither from here nor from there”—a phrase long used within the Latinx diaspora to lament the sense of belonging left behind in one’s home country, even generations after immigration. Quiñonez, who grew up in the Dallas–Fort Worth area and witnessed his father’s deportation by immigration authorities in the 1980s, was slated to present a selection of paintings, sculptures, and installations that conveyed his personal story—one of countless similar experiences across the United States.“I wanted to use this exhibition to change that into a term of endearment and owning the fact that you’re from two places that you love equally,” he told ARTnews.Quiñonez stressed the exhibition’s urgency, noting its particular significance at UNT, a Hispanic-Serving Institution where 30 percent of students are Hispanic, as ICE raids and deportations rise nationwide.“The exhibition doesn’t just cover all the bad things happening to our communities,” he said, “it also celebrates our culture, our humanity, our beauty through storytelling.”According to Quiñonez, his communication with CVAD Gallery director Stefanie Dlugosz-Acton abruptly ended days before the show’s scheduled opening, and all mentions of the exhibition were removed from the gallery’s website and social media profiles. He ultimately received an email from Dlugosz-Acton, reviewed by ARTnews, stating that the university has terminated the art loan agreement with Boston University Art Galleries. The university did not provide a reason for the cancelation.After getting his start as a street artist, Quiñonez has earned growing recognition in the art world. He received the 2025 Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize, awarded to “an artist whose work has made a profound social impact,” according to the fair’s website. The prize included $25,000 and a solo presentation at last year’s Frieze LA, where Quiñonez debuted I.C.E. SCREAM, a series of candy-colored sculptures shaped like paletas and printed with the ICE logo—here reimagined to spell out “U.S. Inhumane and Cruelty Enforcement.” ARTnews called it one of the strongest artistic responses to 2025’s ICE raids.Hutzel, speaking to UNT staff, praised “Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá”—which she had viewed before it was shut down. “It was a beautiful exhibit,” Hutzel said. “It represented the artist’s experiences as a Mexican American in this country.”In the meeting, she explained that UNT had made the loan agreement with Boston University to stage the show “at least a year ago,” with DRC noting that the timing coincides with a claim from Texas lawmakers who represent Denton County that they had recieved a “high number of complaints” that an exhibit at UNT Union Art Gallery by two Muslim students was antisemitic. (The exhibit closed on schedule and is operated independently from CVAD.)Hutzel said she did not personally object to Quiñonez’s exhibit but pointed to its political content as the reason the gallery windows were covered and the show removed.“Some of the pieces included what’s deemed as anti-ICE messaging,” she said. “And so … that topic itself has entered a different space, and so it was that aspect of it that the university leadership became very concerned about … the political and public response [and] scrutiny across the spectrum.”A UNT spokesperson did not respond to request for comment.