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Thursday, January 31, 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
KU Bends to Pressure
We at the University of Kansas have learned well in the last few years that our fiscal fortunes rise with an increase in our image in the Kansas Legislature.
And well we should after the 1970 legislature voted an austerity budget because it did want to keep our jobs long-laired, building-burning protestors.
Now we stop whatever we're doing whenever some legislator sneezes. For example, showings of two erotic films were canceled last week when a couple of legislators raised objections.
Of course, all those except one student involved in meetings with the legislators denied that any direct threat *would* have an impact on the films when the chances of KU's budget. But you can bet the threat was implied.
That's because people keep a closed eye on what goes on here. The legislators said, for example, that their interest was aroused when they saw the films listed in a schedule of events.
And the chancellor's office regularly gets complaints about such things as the deportment of immigrants, the presence of gav dances in the Kansas Union.
When people, especially people in power, see something going on they don't like, they lower their estimation of KU. A low public estimate of the University presumably works against passage of high appropriations bills. KU is still trying to recover from the setback of an austerity budget in fiscal 1971.
So the Student Union Activities (SUA) board took its action "in the
best interests of the University," considering, it said, political funding pressures and the implications of legal action.
inneed, the issue of the legality of showing the films has important implications. One is that a conviction for showing obscene matter in a University building would reflect poorly on the University.
Another, more practical consideration, is that defending against an obscenity charge would be costly, even if obscenity laws are so confused that a conviction would be unlikely.
But the ramifications of avoiding the issue could prove even costlier. In the immediate situation, the cancellations leave a gap in SUA's effort to provide a comprehensive survey for a University audience.
This raises the broader question of academic freedom. A University, of all places, should be the place where material and ideas unacceptable elsewhere can be freely broached.
Here, however, there's an Orwellian atmosphere: whatever we do, we mustn't displease or offend the people in Topeka or anybody who might complain to somebody in Topeka. If we do, then our image would suffer. So if our budget would suffer, which would mean we would suffer.
So instead, the films are canceled Kansas Legislature remains secure.
But where will such censorship by timidity next occur? And what less obvious effects will it have? We need to know more for our budget fortunes become?
Bob Simison
Kansas: The Moral State
From the days of Carry Nation to the days of the Rev. Richard Taylor and Vern Miller, Kansans have demonstrated a clear preference for traditional morality and clean living.
If the trend continues, Kansas will undoubtedly be the firmest moral fiber of any state. "Kansas should the state" should become the state, motto.
Vern Miller's confiscation of Amtrak's booze and the fervent condemnation of liquor-by-the-drink proposals by the Rev. Taylor indicate that Kansas has not yet been spared the kind of moral zest that prompted Carry Nation to crash the bars of Kansas.
Knowledge of the moral quality of Kansas is essential for an understanding of the nature of the culture and its culture and its law enforcement
The Kansas morality is the type that is defined almost entirely along alcoholic or sexual lines. It is considered immoral to make love to another's wife. But participation in warfare, indifference to the poor and the many petty day-to-day cruelties that are exchanged between people are considered unfortunate but irreversible facts of life. In the movies and on television it is acceptable for John to murder Mary, but he mustn't make love to her.
The morality factor provides the source for the occasional frictions that develop between the university community and the state community. It provides the challenge for increasing university funds.
This moral doctrine and the frame of mind that engenders it harps sharply on the atmosphere and attitudes of the campus. Campuses tend to be
cosmopolitan communities which include many diverse minority groups and representatives from all parts of the state, the nation and the world.
Campuses contain a high proportion of people who wish to expand their realm of experiences in order to live more fully or to acquire knowledge and wisdom. The true prospector for truth doesn't cast away nuggets of information which are superstitiously repressed or offensive to some others. Some experiences are sad, tragic or tasteless, but they are just as much a part of life as the rest and might as well not be censored.
In such cosmopolitan communities, people tend to experience a great variety of stimuli and behavior. Consequently, deviations in all things, including conventional morality, is not as shocking as it would be for those in a close off community.
That is why places like the University of Kansas show films like "The Erotic Celebration" and it is why state legislators were able to suppress the film. The moral schism has disconfined all concerned. The University is in an especially vulnerable position since it must beg funds from the state.
And the moral attitude of Kansans isn't likely to change.
To ease the friction resulting from the disparate attitudes on morality, enforcement of the morality laws should be left to local officials. And campus groups such as Sage University Onion Activities should deal more directly to direct legal censorship, rather than just the threat of it.
Bill Gibson
Censorship:
Film Censors Set Threatening Precedent
By BUNNY MILLER Kansan Staff Reporter
The SUA board didn't burn any books last week. But the scene could have been set in a George Orwell novel when it voted Jan. 19 to cancel the second showing of "The Erotic Celebration" and Jan. 23 to cancel another erotic film, "The Devil in Miss Jones."
These board decisions admittently made under administrative pressure after two state senators, Edward F. Reilly Jr., JR, and James B. McIntosh, JETmore, complained about the showing Jan. 18 of the SUA Popular Films Series presentation, "The Erotic Celebration." Board members said fear of film conventions would have prevented native fund cuts prompted their decisions.
Several board members said they thought they had made the decisions hastily and without full understanding of all the legal issues involved. "We didn't have hadn't even seen the films, they voted on,
"My lack of knowledge really influenced my vote," said Charlene Langer, Carnegie, p.a., senior and SUA fine arts board member. "It was interesting to see where we stood on the situation."
Frank Burge, Kansas Union director,
said, "In retrospect, I should have given
them more time to view the film and then
come to a calm decision."
It was a political, not legal, decision to cancel the films. Jimmy Hindsale, Hindalaade and Gai Bansal were forced to quit.
"We've never had any problems showing erotic films on campus before," another
"We have tried to show the most complete film series we possibly could," Millo said. His films are based on a collaboration of film art, and their popularity is obvious." Millo said erotic films had been shown at the Cairo Film Festival.
"The principles at stake were enough to fight for not canceling the film," he said. "But we felt to show the film again probably would have been financial suicide."
Milo said erotic films had been shown at KU last year without incident.
Because of an unfortunate mis- understanding, the future of a free and open film series at the University of Kansas is at stake
Both senators denied making any budget threats. Chancellor Archie R. Dykes denied having promised the senators before the board's decision that the films wouldn't be shown. Burge said that if the board members voted as they did because they thought those things had happened, it was an "unfortunate misunderstanding."
board member said. "We even check
when they buy tickets and also at the door."
Board members said they hadn't heard any other complaints about erotic and other X- and R-rated films being shown on campus.
"The only problem we have is trying to keep people away because we have so many IT specialists."
According to Charles H. Oldfather, a judge in the United States, legal base for confessing either film and/or television content.
no grounds for conviction on obscenity charges.
Legal problems aside, board members are more concerned with political maneuvering of an independent student organization.
But Reilly said he didn't anticipate any further action.
"We feel the problem has been worked out by the administration and the students involved," he said. "They're the ones who know what's best for the University."
Dykes said he hoped that SUA would "exercise good judgment and schedule what they think is appropriate and in the best interests of the University."
Although Dykes and Reilly regard the
children in closed, student and board
moments are seen.
Bark Karne, Overland Park junior and SUA forums board member, said, "I see a need for a new office."
"We hate being used by these senators," Milo said. "What scared me is that they are talking to us."
Grandmother Censors Skin Flicks
Bv DOUG WATSON
The Washington Post
BALTIMORE...“It’s a relief to leave here and go outside and see everybody with their clothes on,” said Mary Aava, a 63-year grandmother who has viewed almost every movie shown in Maryland in the past 14 months, including hundreds of pornographic films.
It's all part of the job for Avara and her two male colleagues on the three-member Maryland State Board of Censors, the only state movie censoring board in the nation and an agency long accustomed to being either for censoring to much or too little.
"Do you know anybody who goes downstairs naked to serve her husband breakfast?" asked Avara, commenting on the open scene of "Blue Money," the fourth film she had watched on a recent morning at the board's eighth-floor screening room here.
Boredom was a problem for the three state censors when they viewed "Blue Money." They received telephone calls and dictated letters as the movie played. A low-budget film which had been rejected by the board twice before, "Blue Money" was back for a third try, minus many close-up shots of sexual activity.
This time the censors approved the edited film without any debate, though it still contained numerous suggestive scenes and plenty of nudity, including a scene in which the naked wife comes downstairs to say goodbye to her husband.
The censors agreed that there has been a lot more sex in movies made during recent years, but because of court decisions reflecting changing social attitudes, the board does a lot less censoring than it once did.
"Fourteen years ago we never would have let them go to bed," said Avara as a young girl on the screen slid under the sheets.
The censor board, established in 1916, could until the 1960s censor movies because they were regarded as sacrilegious, thought to be a time or found to 'debase or corrupt meals'.
During the 1906s the board tried to ban "On the Waterfront" because a young tough in it told a Catholic priest to "go to hell." It banned a humorous Alec Gunessim film, The Captain's Paradise," because Guilbert ayed a ship's captain with wives in two spots.
Walt Disney even ran afoul of the board in 1964 when it asked him to eliminate a acne specialist.
birth of a buffalo.
Federal and state court decisions gradually have reduced the authority once assumed by the board. In 1965, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down Maryland's former censorship law, ruling that the court had no power to判决 judicial review of the censors' actions.
However, in 1971 the Supreme Court deadlocked 4 to 1 on the board's right to ban 'I Am Curious (Yellow).' That action not only had the effect of upholding the board's ban of the movie but it also authorized the board to continue censoring.
However, the board now can camera only those scenes found to be sexually obscene
"I would love to take a lot more out, but I can't do it," said Avara. She has her own rating system: "G for Garbage, RT for Real Trash."
The censor board no longer regards nudity as being obscene. Obviously sexual scenes that may be very pornographic or erotic are not censored, and they leave something to the imagination.
For this reason the board did not require any cuts in "Last Tang in Paris", though the controversial film includes scenes portraying sexual intercourse.
The board members they now only censor the "hard-core" Hilming of actual
Views Vary on SUA Film Action
Avara, one of 18 children, is not easily shocked. When asked her qualifications to be a censor at a legislative hearing two years ago, she referred to her deceased husband and said, "When you ve had a fulltime manman, believe me, you know all about sex."
Situation Despicable
To the Editor:
I have followed with interest the rather despicable situation revolving around the cancellation over a week ago of the final film, "The film, 'The Erotic Celebration.'"
It seemed somewhat typical of this variety of action that the man who was apparently chiefly responsible for the cancellation (San. Wilson, D-Jetmore) of mind that was described by Jim Milo as being "very hard to keep in control."
The board members hope the pendulum on depiction of sex has begun to swing back. Since the Supreme Court decision giving local prosecutors more power to prosecute pornography, they have noticed that film producers apparently had little ownership and have been far less willing to dispatch a censor board's decision in court.
Griff and the Unicorn
As long as he was visiting here in Lawrence, he might as well have dropped in on the campus bookstore and burned a few textbooks, following the recent example at Drake (N.D). High School where they invented 32 copies of 'Shuglhouse Five.'
Wilson's actions are especially reprehensible when viewed in light of the Supreme Court's decision of these cases over to local communities. Since this kind of film has invariably brought a full house to the Union, it is quite clear that Wilson's behavior was wrong.
In past years there were repeated moves in the legislature to abolish the board, whose annual budget was cut from a high of $83,000 to $49,000. Now even John Eromer, director of the Maryland unit of American Civil Liberties Union which officially opposes all censorship, conceded the censorship "is easier to live with" than it once was.
In the future, I would suggest to those responsible for showing films at the Union that they add a special rating that would not allow Kansas senators to see a film unless accompanied by a student. Measures such as this would protect the apparently naive senators from seeing things that they were obviously not meant to see.
Mark Staples Great Bend junior
Decision Defended
To the Editor:
In the recent controversy over SUA's decision to cancel the Jan. 19 showing of "The Erotic Celebration," it seems that the assaultors of both the chancellor and the SUA board are ignoring, or at least disregarding, the request to act as they did upfront pressure from the two state senators, Ed Reily and Chuck Wilson.
It is bizarre that the legislators happened to be in Lawrence, on campus and in Woodruff Auditorium Friday night at the height of the University's computer lab. The situation was slow in getting to the students and even now contradicts itself in the telling. But the facts, which like it or not influenced the decisions of both Chancellor Dykes and the SUA
(1) "The Erotic Celebration" question could very likely have made it to the floor of the Kansas legislature now, with the governor saying that an adverse effect upon University funding.
(2) If blower into a major controversy, the incident would underscore the impression in which liberal-radical thinking University is little more than a hotbed of liberal-to-moral radical thought and therefore would not be considered.
The board has only three employees and therefore isn't able to regularly check films shown in Maryland's 230 movie theaters to see if they have the board's required seal of approval and if they have cut the censored scenes.
People are afraid to recognize that SUA and the chancellor did the right thing. The cries of blackmail by the legislators and censorship are valid. But those legislators themselves should be the target of student protest. Dykes and SUA were simply being realistic in determining the practical imminence of such attacks upon the existence of the University, which, in essence, rests with the Kansas Legislature.
3) Vern Miller's swooping noby into Lawrence to confiscate the "pornography" would be a fuel injection to his 1974 suburban campaign.
Kelly Scott Houston sophomore
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