Nudity not for necking

While many IU students plan to resume business as usual when they return to campus after the holiday break, students at Bennington College in Vermont are preparing to uphold their right to college life in the nude.\nReflecting the feel good attitude and free spirit conditioning of post-modern American ideology, some Bennington students have exploited an informal campus policy since the 1960s which allows them to conduct academic business and to participate in leisure activities while naked -- genitals blowing to-and-fro in the breeze in plain view for all to see.\nThroughout the last 40 years, some Bennington students have acted upon an informal policy allowing nudity at campus social gatherings, events and recreational activities. However, newly hired Dean of Students Robert Graves has expressed his displeasure about student nudity after a nude student paraded in front of a summer orientation session for perspective parents of would-be applicants. \nFrom the perspective of Dean Graves, Bennington College does not operate in a "clothing-optional" American culture; therefore, Bennington College should not be a "clothing-optional" campus, despite four decades of Bennington student tradition and tolerance of free-spirited behaviors. \nIn response to Dean Graves' crack-down on public campus decency based on his interpretation of the American moral fabric and his projected desire for social order, more than 200 Bennington students stomped across campus -- some with bare feet -- in protest of perceived attacks on their right of freedom of expression in October. Some members of the Bennington student body believe campus nudity is seldom lewd; rather, they seem to believe campus nudity promotes self-awareness, self-acceptance and an appreciation of the nude human body as it relates to civilization birthed out of the rugged frontier wilderness.\nSince Bennington College does support a Nude Activities Club -- which promotes clothing-optional picnics, outdoor games and festivals - the entire student body should be allowed to frolic in the nude if this desire overcomes their customary public responsibilities and social sensibilities. Dean Graves, whose own self-esteem might benefit from a nude stroll across campus, should not eliminate the campus tradition of public nudity based on his own personal whim or disapproval of the nude human form.\nInstead, Dean Graves should relish in Bennington's student body belief in freedom of expression. Unlike the free-love of the 1960s, Bennington students presumably do not desire nakedness as a condition of drug-use or as a form of social protest against the norms of acceptable social behavior. Bennington students seem to desire nothing more than the feeling of their flesh coming into contact with the fruits of Mother Nature's labor.\nFour decades of non-violent and peaceful tradition should not be erased because the University hires new personnel. Bennington College claims their University does not expect students to "conform" but "transform." As such, if Dean Graves is successful in his petition to end student nudity on campus, students should bare their all anyway -- bare backs, bare butts, bare chests and bare genitals if need be -- depending on the campus activity or social celebration.