'This is America': Removal of high school student's artwork on racism sparks furor

YORK, Maine — In her 11th grade English class last winter, Claudia Corcoran read "A Very Large Expanse of Sea," a book about a young Muslim girl who fought back after experiencing racism in her school.

The story inspired Corcoran, an artist now in her senior year at York High School, to create a piece of visual art with a message. Her father, also an artist, always told her, “the bigger the art, the bigger the impact.” So she followed the book's inspiration and her father's advice to create a large-format statement piece.