In early 2023, Valparaiso University announced that they had decided to sell three paintings in their collection to fund dormitory renovations under the leadership of president José Padilla. The proposed sale of three paintings—Mountain Landscape (c. 1849) by Frederic Edwin Church, The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate (1914) by Childe Hassam, and Rust Red Hills (1930) by Georgia O'Keeffe—sparked fierce opposition, including protests from faculty, students, and Richard H. W. Brauer, founder and director of the university's Brauer Museum of Art.