A Pasadena illustrator who has posted her artwork online since she was a teenager says the U.S. Department of Education appropriated her fan art depicting Avatar: The Last Airbender characters, ran it through AI, and slapped a political slogan on top of it. Devin Elle Kurtz, 29, says she never gave anyone permission to touch the piece, let alone a federal agency pushing a campaign-style message.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Kurtz made the original artwork in 2023, depicting Aang and Zuko practicing fire-bending as two dragons move around them. She said she created the piece to share her love of the animated series with its creators and fellow fans. On Thursday, the Department of Education posted a meme on X using an image that strongly resembled her work, swapping in the text “There’s magic in learning” and “Make education great again.”
The Department of Education’s version kept the characters in what the Times described as seemingly identical stances, outfits and color scheme to Kurtz’s original. But Kurtz noticed the dragons were missing, and the platform the two characters stood on had oddly sized bricks — a telltale sign, she suggested, of AI alteration. She said she did not and would never consent to this administration running her fan art through AI and posting it.
Kurtz Says the Criticism Is Backward
Kurtz condemned the administration for using her work and said she was angry it had been paired with what she called a MAGA-adjacent slogan. She said she wanted to make clear she did not co-sign the meme, explaining that fandom is supposed to bring people together through a shared love of something — not get hijacked for a political message she never approved.
She also pushed back on a frustration she says she has dealt with for years: strangers telling her that her own art style looks AI-generated. Kurtz said she believes observers have the issue backward, and per the Times, she keeps the phrase “NO AI” in her Instagram bio because she suspects her viral art may already have been used to train AI models. Her response to the Department of Education’s post had drawn 150,000 likes by late Thursday night, the paper reported.
Despite her anger, Kurtz said she does not intend to pursue legal action, since her own fan art is itself based on existing intellectual property from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She said she would simply welcome the government not taking artists’ work, running it through AI, and posting it without asking first. The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Thursday, according to the Times.
Not the First Time Artists Have Pushed Back
Kurtz’s complaint lands amid a string of similar disputes between the administration and creative professionals. The Times’ entertainment desk has reported that artists including Olivia Rodrigo and Hiroshi Nagai are among those who have accused the Trump administration of using their work without their knowledge.
Musicians have raised similar objections. Last December, Sabrina Carpenter was angered after her song “Juno” appeared as the soundtrack for a Department of Homeland Security promotional video posted on the White House’s official X account, which featured clips of officers tackling and handcuffing people. Carpenter called the video evil and disgusting and said her music should not be used to benefit the administration’s agenda, a remark that prompted DHS to delete the video, per the same Los Angeles Times account.
Other musicians have had similar run-ins with the agency. DHS was forced to pull MGMT’s “Little Dark Age” from an ICE recruitment ad after the band issued a takedown request, and the White House used Jess Glynne’s 2015 song “Hold My Hand” to promote a deportation operation over the summer, drawing condemnation from Glynne.
What the Law Says About Unauthorized Use
Federal copyright law recognizes fair use as a judicial doctrine and an established limitation on a copyright owner’s exclusive rights, codified in 17 U.S.C. § 107. Separately, the U.S. Copyright Office notes that visual artists generally have the right to pursue legal action when their work is used unlawfully without permission and the use isn’t covered by an exception such as fair use. Kurtz’s case sits in murkier territory precisely because her original artwork already drew on Avatar: The Last Airbender’s copyrighted characters — the reason she cited for declining to pursue a claim of her own.
