The University of New Mexico has rejected a sculpture it had commissioned from a Native American artist because his final product includes barbed wire

The work, "Cultural Crossroads," by Native American artist Bob Haozous, "is not the work we commissioned," says Peter Walsh, director of UNM's Fine Arts Museum. "It is substantially different."

The model that Haozous turned in is different from the final product, says Walsh. And while a number of changes were made from the original model, it is one change in particular that has raised the ire of the university; the razo wire that sits atop the work.

The sculpture depicts a migration scene from an old Aztec picture book. Three Indians are shown migrating toward Albuquerque in the United States. According to Haozous, the work depicts a border crossing.

"Everything in the work is a symbol, says Haozous, explaining that the full title of the work is called "Cultural Crossroads of the Americas." The barbed wire, which appears both in his work and along the U.S. Mexico border "is a dehumanizing part of our lives," says Haozous. The work depicts a border crossing, he says. "It's tremendous symbolism."

As to why it was not part of the original model, he says: "The work matured in the studio."

At the moment, the university is withholding payment to Haozous and is attempting to get the artist to remove the wire from the work. One of the other alternatives is to remove the sculpture altogether from the university grounds, says Walsh, who insists that the issue is not about censorship.

"It depends on your point of view and I admit there are other points of view," concedes Walsh.

If the barbed wire remains, it would be both subverting the process and unfair to the other artists who submitted their works, he says, because they participated in a competitive process.

"The piece he delivered may be better than the one he proposed, but we really want that piece [the one approved]. The one he delivered is significantly different," complains Walsh.

The issue, says Walsh is about respecting the integrity of the process. More than 200 people from the public approved the model. "Next time, when we ask people to help us choose, they will wonder: "why should I bother to vote?' I encourages cynicism."

"We know art is controversial," says Walsh. "I love his work because it is controversial. The wire gives it a different bite and meaning."

Haozous believes the controversy is not about the process, but rather about the message. People object to in the work is the fact that it's not decorative art -- not Southwest Indian art that whites have become accustomed to seeing, that they have come to expect from Native American artists, says Haozous.

"They don't want to see the holocaust against brown people, about what they're doing to them on the border," accuses Haozous.

The commissioned work is actually a joint venture between the city and the university. Jane Sprague, assistant coordinator for the city's public art program says the city found the work to be acceptable. The city's art board she says, found the work to be a "social, cultural and political commentary, within the context of what he [Haozous] proposed. It was his type of artwork and the board found it acceptable."

Sprague says there is no precedent for handling such a dispute. The city approves and the university disapproves. She notes that the sculpture is on university property and that UNM has committed more money to the project. The city's portion is $15,000 and UNM's is $65,000.

Sprague says that the city's art board believes it is important to have a discussion so that the campus and surrounding community can address the issue. The Native American Kiva club at UNM, the Albuquerque Arts Alliance and the Washington DC-based Morning Star Foundation, a Native American civil rights organization, have suggested having a forum to deal with the issue.

Walsh agrees that a forum is appropriate and says that its purpose should no be a referendum, but "as a way to allow different people a chance to talk and listen. To think it over. Maybe it will reveal if something is fundamentally flawed with how we are dealing with each other. It's a terrible situation."

However, Haozous says he doesn't know what the purpose of the forum would be To him, the issue is quite simple; creative expression vs. censorship. When dealing with issues such as censorship, there is no place for a compromise, he says.

Walsh says that as soon as the work was delivered,, members of a joint ad-hoc University of New Mexico Public Arts Committee were upset. A meeting was convened shortly thereafter and the committee voted unanimously to reject the work. Sprague says three other members were not present and have indicated that they would have voted in favor of it.

Ted Jojola, professor, school of architecture and planning, a member of the joint committee and former director of Native American studies, says the vote was fraudulent. In a letter to Gordon Church, coordinator of the Albuquerque Public Arts Program, Jojola states:

"...It is my conviction that the Committee vote is fraudulent as it was obtained without due process, As a voting member, I had only been notified verbally that a meeting was being convened to discuss the merits of the issue. Because of teaching conflicts I was unable to attend and was consequently requested to communicate my opinion to your office (which I did by telephone on the morning of September 25th). I was not, however, notified that a formal vote would be conducted by the members in attendance nor was I offered a proxy vote in the event of a legitimate conflict.

Based on this violation, I am requesting that the Albuquerque Public Arts Program dismiss the Committee's vote, without prejudice, from its deliberation. Failure to do so may result in litigation, particularly if Mr. Bob Haozous is required to compromise or remove his sculpture..."

Jojola says he became aware after writing the letter that the committee he was serving on was merely an advisory committee. Walsh confirms that the committee is advisory and admits that the worst-case scenario is if this dispute ends up in the courts.

Jojola says that despite his advisory capacity, he believes the determination of the committee "represents the skewed view of a 'privileged voice" and isolated minority on campus. "

Jojola further states that the notion of having to get further public input "reminds me of those neo-colonial fascists who made binding treaties with Indians and then reneged in the face of their non-ratification at the Congressional level."

Haozous says: "I gave them the best piece I've ever done. They want to hide things in the closet, but compare the borders with Canada and Mexico," he says. The disparate treatment on the borders shouldn't be allowed to happen, he says. But it happens because the people coming across the Canadian/U.S. border are white whereas those those coming across the U.S./Mexico border are brown.

Walsh says that the other changes are understandable and permissible. One change involves replacing a star with an 'end of the trail' cowboy. Also, a horse was replaced by three rings, which Walsh says probably represents the old Mayan ball games. "Those are allowable. However, the wire on top is totally a new element. It goes contrary to the spirit and letter of the contract. It's not just a legal document. It's a social contract."

Haozous says he is convinced that the issue has to do with expectation of what is Native American art? "They want art that is quaint," he says. "I want to make an honest statement."

In the meantime, Haozous says, "Everybody's talking and I'm hungry."

We've all heard the adage that if you expect failure, it will find you. Sometimes as a society, we get hung up on words, and sometimes words or labels become self-fulfilling prophesies. We thought about this recently while discussing what it means to be "at risk."

The topic came up in the context of Philadelphia's plan to label some police officers as "at risk" of being violence-prone. Somehow, it didn't seem right. Any officer that is "at risk" of being violent doesn't belong in uniform. Today, the term is normally applied to youth. We figure that if some people think "at risk" officers don't belong on police forces, others may think that "at risk" students don't belong in school or college.

Yet nowadays, everyone seems to fit that category. In fact, according to some think tank types, our entire nation is "at risk." But of course, the question is, at risk of what?

The pat answer is gangs, getting pregnant while young and unmarried, getting killed, dropping out of school or going to prison. Failure in general.

As a society, we never seem to view these same youngsters as "at risk" of becoming professionals or raising wholesome families. Or, as a friend remarked, "at risk" of being loved or of smiling.

A generation ago, as a society, we looked at youths from troubled background and viewed them as having a high potential. There was an expectation that they would, or at least could, succeed. Now, unless there's intervention, w expect failure. This labeling and expectation begins even before the child has started school.

What accounts for this change in expectation?

Despite the different terminology, the definition of being "at risk" or having "high potential" is the same: anyone who is poor, from a large or a single-parent family, someone who lives in a poor neighborhood, an immigrant a student whose first language is not English, who did not attend preschool, and whose parents did not go to college.

That describes virtually every person of color we went to college with. Yet none of us viewed ourselves as potential failures. We all believed we could succeed. And virtually all of us did, partly because we believed that society expected us to fail.

One program that exemplified this attitude was the High Potential Program (1969-1971) at UCLA. Roberto Sifuentes, professor at California State University at Northridge and one of the cofounders of the program, says that they recruited and admitted Chicano/Latino and African American students to UCLA from the ranks of ex-prisoners and gang members and those who had dropped out. "A high school diploma was not a requisite. We recruited people who were active in their community and who had the ability to lead."

Sifuentes says that they mentored these students for a year, but the key to their success was believing in them. "We expected them to succeed and they did."

Today, they're engineers, professors, teachers, social workers and bankers, says Sifuentes, proving that the "regular" admissions criteria of the university served only as a barrier to education. "It takes a lot of intelligence to survive in the streets," Sifuentes points out.

While the UCLA program was unique, similar programs sprouted around the country in the belief that no one was hopeless and everyone could succeed.

Sifuentes says he could replicate such a program today. When he hears the term "at risk" applied to students, he says he gets "the feeling that they're about to fall into an abyss of ignorance. People who call them that don't understand the reality of human beings. The potential of all human beings is incredible."

Today, we run into youths all over the country whom society has deemed "at risk," yet we don't view them as such. We're thinking of students such as those from Bell Multi-Cultural High School in our nation's capital. It was they who ran the national office of the recent Latino march on Washington. We see them as individuals with great leadership capabilities.

A bureaucrat somewhere probably considers Andrea Serrano, a senior at Valley High School in Albuquerque, N.M., at risk. She doesn't accept that designation and neither do we. She is a member of the El Puente Raza Youth Leadership Institute at the University of New Mexico, comprised of some of the brightest students in the state. Yet their brightness stems, not from their grades, but their commitment to better their community. Serrano, who plans to be a journalist, says that being labeled "at risk" is like categorizing people as being part of throw away society.

Sometimes, youths who are labeled "at risk" start believing it, says Serrano Perhaps it's time we dropped this view of the world--and the label--lest we come to believe in the hopelessness of society, rather than the infinite potential of all human beings.