Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Effects of Porn at MIT (Re: Someone Convince Me) Summary: Expires: References: <1iv5r8$a44@agate.berkeley.edu> Sender: Followup-To: Keywords: In article <1iv5r8$a44@agate.berkeley.edu> kowan@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Rich Cowan) writes: As someone who was around or followed many of the events in this posting, I found several severe errors and problems that bear comment. > The "Registration Day Movie" always attracted over 2000 people -- half > the student body and two to three times the regular movie attendance This seems very high. There were 3 or 4 showings in the largest auditorium used for movies. I think every show would have had to be filled to capacity to get this number. > Like most other people on my undergraduate dorm floor, I paid a dollar to This may be more an indication of your floor than anything else. I didn't go, and I know many other people who didn't attend. > off with men defending their "First Amendment" freedom to show and view > X- rated films. This is gross mischaracterization of the debate. There were people who thought the movies had a right to be shown, but that it was a bad decision (as other movies would make better choices), people who said the MIT administration shouldn't interfere whether they approved of the movie or not, a small but vocal religious faction which opposed the movies on their moral, not feminist grounds, etc. I don't recall science being much of a factor. Certainly I rarely if ever heard someone say anything more specific than a vague reference to "studies show ...". > the implicit sanction of showing these movies as a kickoff ritual ... MIT does not pick the movies, a small group of students does. If the theory is that MIT approves of whatever happens on it, and has a responsibility to regulate it, activists on campus will surely suffer greatly under this idea. > day movie let out, women were accosted by bands of leering men. There were and are some very sexist groups that went to these movies. However, note some recently showed up as a counter-protest to a rally against sexual harassment. Nasty people exist, and can show up in quantity at various places and events on campus. > Widely acknowledged forms of sexism at MIT, in which male professors, > students and research colleagues tend to ignore women, stare at them, or >fail to treat them as serious scientists, seemed to worsen after the showings. I have no idea how one would go about testing this. Did the professors in question even go to the showings? Professors tend not to be at movie shows at MIT, and even less the loud, obnoxious ones. > Feminists documented these incidents, lobbied the administration True. But note that if you wish to discount evidence by people who enjoy these moves as self-serving, you must also be skeptical of the claims of people who wish to ban them. > The MIT administration, facing legal threats on both sides, cancelled > the showing and attempted a compromise The MIT administration does not show these movies, a volunteer student activity known as LSC runs them (though they use MIT facilities). I remember that day vividly. As I heard it, the head of LSC, a student, was threatened with police arrest if the movie was shown. He understandably decided not to go ahead. > The student movie committee was persuaded to eliminate the > registration day tradition That "persuasion" was almost literally at gunpoint. [Adam Dershowitz & _Deep Throat_] > The MIT administration did not stop it, fearing legal action by Harvard > law professor and Penthouse columnist Alan Dershowitz (Adam's uncle). WHAT??? This was one of the most infamous cases to occur at MIT in the last decade (ranking perhaps third in notoriety and potential abuse of power). Perhaps you mean to imply only that some form of prior restraint was not sought. Dershowitz first showed the film in February 1987. He was prosecuted for violating the "porn policy" before the most serious internal judicial body of MIT, the Committee on Discipline (COD). Though Alan Dershowitz may have had a role, Adam Dershowitz was chiefly defended by Harvey Silvergate, a noted civil liberties lawyer in Massachusetts (and, yes, a friend of Alan Dershowitz). In front of me, as a I write, I have a letter written by Silvergate to the main campus newspaper describing this case. I keep a copy of it around as I've found the typical recounting is very inaccurate. After grinding for some time, the COD _unanimously_ acquitted Dershowitz. The policy was ruled to violate academic freedom. A year later, Dershowitz showed the film again (this may be the showing you refer to). This time around, instead of bringing him before the COD, Associate Provost Keyser unilaterally placed a letter of admonition in Dershowitz's file. Silvergate was writing the letter to MIT's main newspaper as he was being stonewalled by MIT in challenging this. Though Alan Dershowitz may have had material in Penthouse, he has written frequently for the Boston _Herald_ (one of the two MA daily newspapers), authored several books, taken on many death penalty cases, and hardly deserves to be described just as a "Penthouse columnist". You may be confusing him with Suzy , or someone else. > The problem is that current law allows only certain types of > "community standards" to determine what is obscene. What other standards are under discussion? Anyone who is conversant with the history of censorship knows such varied works as the Bible, _Ulysses_, and "Our Bodies, Ourselves" have been banned. > According to MIT Women's Studies lecturer Ann Russo, MIT's policies > are more likely to be overturned because they "focus on > victimization of women." Having read them, I am of the opinion that they are unlikely to fare well because they are frighteningly vague and unworkable. The "REPORT OF THE MIT COMMITTEE ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT" (October 1990) _proposed_ the following definition (this is a direct cut-and-paste): Sexual harassment includes but is not limited to the following behaviors: (1) sexist remarks, slogans and behavior that demean persons based on their gender or sexual preference, (2) insulting, lewd, obscene, or sexually suggestive remarks or conduct, (3) public visual displays of degrading sexual images, (4) unwanted touching, patting, or pinching, (5) inappropriate social invitations, (6) demands for sex, (7) sexual assault, including date rape, and (8) threats or punitive action as the result of rejetion of sexual advances or rejection of romantic involvement. Placing "sexist remarks" under the same category and in the same framework as "rape" may suffice for social analysis, but it is no way to formulate a usable policy. > but the MIT administration leaves it to the victims to object to public > screenings I have no idea where that thought originated. Certain members of the MIT administration are well-known for objecting to anything at all they find problematical (movies, posters, photos, paintings, etc.), and seeing by one way or another that their wishes are obeyed. However, this does not often receive much publicity, as few people have the legal resources of Adam Dershowitz and are willing to go through a serious trial within MIT to attempt to prevail. > Campus peace activists can help by educating ourselves about > violence against women and its relationship to pornography. We can > advocate stronger sexual harassment and pornography policies and > help to enforce policies the school administration is unwilling to support. Campus peace activists who work for and try to establish policies like the one cited above will one day after the revolution metaphorically find themselves lined up against a wall and shot. Last summer, _The Thistle_, MIT's alternative newspaper got itself into some trouble for an issue which published a "safer sex" article that used common "street" terms instead of clinical ones. This was the issue that was mailed to prospective students. Just think of what could have been done by terming it "lewd, obscene, or sexually suggestive". -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@athena.mit.edu