Posted on 03/13/2003 9:21:24 AM PST by Maximilian
Xavier: Professor can stage play
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By Kevin Eigelbach Post staff reporter
Xavier University President Michael Graham, who earlier this week banned a student production on campus of "The Vagina Monologues," won't try to block a professor who is including the performance as part of her class. Through a spokesperson Wednesday, Graham called the professor's move "a legitimate exercise of academic freedom" that puts the play "in a suitable environment of debate and discussion."
Ironically, the show will go on at the same time and place as originally scheduled -- the Gallagher Student Center theater at 8 p.m. Friday, and at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday.
"The three meeting times will accommodate Dr. (Nancy) Bertaux's already large classes and any (other) students who wish to attend," Graham said.
Moved by what students said at a Tuesday meeting, where Graham discussed the Xavier executive committee's decision to cancel the play, Bertaux, an economics and human relations professor, took a copy of the play home and read it. Then, on Wednesday, she offered to have the Xavier Players present the play as part of a class she teaches on discrimination and power in America. It fits in with her discussion of gender issues.
"I was inspired by our students," she said.
The words of Natasha Hamilton, the president-elect of the Student Government Association, especially moved her, she said. Hamilton said she faulted the university for acting out of fear.
"A Catholic institution, that fundamentally has God on its side, can't operate on fear. We have to be bold in our stand, and provide a forum for intellectual conversation," Hamilton said.
Bertaux said she read things in the play she wouldn't want her daughters to see, but felt there was nothing an adult couldn't handle.
"Ninety percent of it is really heartwarming and moving and not in any way offensive," Bertaux said.
"It's surprising for us to talk frankly about women's bodies and sexuality because it's all been so submerged.
"That's what the play is all about -- trying to get us to unearth that, and get it all out where it can breathe."
One student told her that they see much more disturbing things on HBO, on their own dormitory televisions.
The faculty overwhelmingly supports the production, Bertaux said, as well as the concept of artistic and academic freedom "regardless of what your views are."
Eve Ensler wrote the play based on her interviews of more than 200 women about their vaginas, which led to discussions of often disturbing topics such as rape, incest and genital mutilation.
Then she adapted the interviews into a series of monologues.
Although the play will go on, the issue of censorship hasn't been settled.
"What the university has stated is that academic freedom is limited to faculty members and the classroom experience," Hamilton said. "What they have said is that as students, you don't have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression."
That concerns her, she said, because it might affect other student groups that want to address controversial issues.
Students still plan to rally at 3 p.m. Friday in front of the student center, Sims said, because the issue is bigger than just the play.
"This is about students having a voice on the campus, and our voice being heard," she said.
She sees the controversy as a turning point in the university's history.
"It's the first time in a long time that the students have had such a strong voice," she said.
That student activism started about three months ago, Hamilton said, with students speaking out about a lack of policies and procedures on campus.
"One reason students are speaking out is that Father Graham is open to hearing us," she said, even though they disagree over this issue. "In the past, students haven't spoken out because they didn't feel they had anyone to speak out to."
The initial decision to cancel came as a surprise to Student Activities Council member Chris Sims said, because the university has produced plays that dealt with sexuality before.
Last month, the Xavier Players presented "Cyclops" -- which Sims said included a giant penis as part of the set -- and "Drag Queens on Trial," a comedy about three cross-dressers who must defend themselves against society.
Cincinnati itself, of course, is no stranger to cries of censorship.
The Playhouse in the Park recently bowed to pressure from Moslems and backed off plans to tour 25 local schools with a production of "Paradise," the story of two girls caught up in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Last month, Xavier's Graham cancelled plans to air a televised speech by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in the school's basketball arena, saying Farrakhan was "perceived by many as divisive."
In his initial decision about "The Vagina Monologues," Graham said controversy about the play was detracting from the reason the Student Activities Council wanted it produced -- to raise awareness about violence against women.
According to students who were at Tuesday's meetings, Graham said alumni and donors lobbined to have the play stopped.
Graham talked of a national campaign by conservative Catholics to go after schools that present the play.
"Alumni wield enormous influence in higher education, particularly in private schools that don't depend on any public assistance," Williams said. "More and more, they are a group that cannot be offended."
The Falls Church, Va.-based Cardinal Newman Society has an "Action Alert" about the play on its Web site. It lists Catholic colleges planning productions and asks for help sending letters of protest to the presidents.
The society faults the play for its "explicit discussions of sexuality and sexual encounters including lesbian activity and masturbation."
"This kind of vulgarity has no academic or social value to students at a Catholic college, and it's spiritually destructive," said Patrick Reilly, the society president, in a press release on the site.
According to the Web site, 31 Catholic colleges are scheduled to produce "The Vagina Monologues" this year. Georgetown University, which is a Jesuit school like Xavier, has produced the play annually since 1999.
The Women's Studies Club at Gonzaga University, a Jesuit school in Spokane, Wash., was denied permission for an on-campus production last year. Instead, university spokesman Dale Goodwin said, Gonzaga students performed it off-campus in Spokane, where it played to three sellout crowds.
Asked what concerns the university president had about the play, Goodwin replied, "I think just the graphic nature of many of the scenes in the play made him a little squeamish, and certainly made others a little squeamish."
Publication Date: 03-13-2003
An institution which fundamentally has God on its side would possess something called the fear of the Lord - which is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Crude discussions of one's own genitalia do not constitute "intellectual conversation".
And why don't men have the same sort of play discussing their genitalia? And why wouldn't it be shown in a Catholic school if they did?
That's Ave Maria University founded by Tom Monaghan and now being run by Fr. Fessio of the Ignatius Institute and Ignatius Press. There's been lots of news reports, several posted here on FR. Apparently they have major plans. The new campus will be in Florida. I hear they will have students down there this Fall.
Click here for the comments of one of the performers.
I disagree. There is a much, much greater degree of culpability by the schools. Parents have a right to expect that their children will be taught the Catholic faith when they send them to Catholic schools. Just as they have a right to be given the Catholic faith when they attend Mass at a Catholic church. Every person cannot be a scholar. Even Christ said, "What father when his son asks for bread, hands him a stone?"
It has long been a requirement that all Catholic parents MUST send their children to Catholic schools. In my youth, the Catholics who went to public school weren't really considered Catholic at all. So the very grave evil here is the fact that wicked people have taken advantage of the duty and obligation of parents to send their children to Catholic schools in order to subvert their faith and pervert their innocence.
That said, the parents still must wise up. What excuse will it be on the day of judgement to say "Yes I gave my children poison, but I was told that it was good for them." Poison will still kill you and your children, even if you were given it in bad faith.
This about says it all for me. What kind of a defense is this? What kind of logic says that an educational institution that should be counterbalancing such nonsense must join in propagating it? Yet we see this kind "defense' of such craziness time and again.
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