When Harvard gets naked

Harvard University recently made national headlines when its Committee on College Life approved the H-Bomb, a student-run magazine featuring art, fiction, articles about sex and nude Harvard students, including students of all backgrounds and sexual orientations.\nTypical. Throw off your blazers and button-downs at Harvard and everyone cheers. Students and administrators run hand-in-hand through the publicity field of constitutional freedom. Try doing that at IU, and you end up with harsh media scrutiny and administrative backlash.\nHarvard students may argue that this is "art," while the IU porn was merely crude debauchery. \n Nonetheless, it's IU that was on the cutting edge. Harvard kids put out a literary magazine with some dirty talk and a little T & A, and everyone applauds -- they challenged the administration to protect their constitutional rights and won. Surprising? Not really. Controversial? Only if you're Larry Flint and we're back in the 1970s. \n The H-Bomb is not a groundbreaking idea -- it's a toned-down version of Madonna's own sex book, an artsy, Ivy League version of Playboy's "Women of the Big Ten." As a nation, we've been there, been shocked and done that. If this was anywhere but Harvard, it wouldn't even make the news.\nThe two female students who conceived the publication were probably poised for a fight -- the students against "the man," constitutional rights against trustee-fueled censorship. The success of the H-Bomb might even have depended on scandal that stemmed from strong administrative resistance. \nBut there was none. The Harvard committee played the hand cool and essentially called the girls' bluff. \n"Our thinking was, this is a free-speech issue," said Paul J. McLoughlin, assistant dean of Harvard College and a member of the committee. "We could not not approve them since we have other student-run publications." (The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 12)\nThe approval allows for the go-ahead of the magazine but leaves its makers to go about finding the funding. To us, this is essentially a dare -- you've got the permission but will you make the publication? \nIf the H-Bomb's editors do come through with the funding, the effort and of course, the hot Harvard nudity, perhaps other universities will have something to gain. \nMaybe its implications will help us fulfill our ultimate dreams ... that one day IU porn will escape media backlash and administrative shame ... that we can preserve our right to produce sexually explicit material not only in Capitalism County but in nearby Politics Park … and that one day, these sweet words will ring out on campus: "I-Bombs now on sale at the Union, come and get your I-Bombs"