************Must Credit The Eagle’s Quill ************

The taxpayers of Indiana have unwittingly footed the bill for the publication of soft-core porn.

A few weeks ago at the publicly funded University of Southern Indiana, The Aerie, a student journal of arts and letters, was published. This 48 page journal includes short stories and poems and a few randomly placed photographs. One of the photographs shows two naked women in bed kissing, in which one woman appears to be masturbating the other woman.

Three lawyers in Evansville have told The Eagle’s Quill that in fact the image constitutes soft-core porn. The names of at least two of the lawyers would be well known to administrators at USI.

Follow the Money

It turns out that Indiana taxpayers helped finance the publication of this soft-core porn.
The funding breaks down as follows:

$844 from the state of Indiana (including tax dollars)

$656 from the university (almost entirely from tuition fees)

$500 from student activity fees.

A total of 700 copies were printed according to a well placed academic source on campus. Another of the photographs in The Aerie was of a “topless” woman in the woods. It is not known if either of the photos was taken on USI property, which would be a potential violation of the student code of conduct.

Reaction

Reactions have been quite clear and sharp concerning the photograph. Here is a sampling of the reactions known to The Eagle’s Quill:

Upon being shown the photo, a faculty colleague of this blogger exclaimed, “Holy Sh-t!” Another faculty colleague shook his head in disbelief.

USI students have variously described the image with terms ranging from “pornography,” to “soft-core porn.”

A father of one USI student described it as “repulsive,” and thought that the Indiana Attorney General should be alerted.

A mother of a different USI student, upon seeing a digitally blurred version of the image on a local TV station last Friday reacted with “Sh-t!” Some links to the TV coverage can be found at this posting.

One USI alumnus described it as “obscene.”

Even the instructor of journalism who is advisor to the student newspaper, The Shield, was opposed to the photo being reprinted in the print edition of that student newspaper.

When the image was described to an academic administrator here at USI, that administrator was visibly surprised.

Action Taken

Upon finding out that state government funds and tuition and student activity fees had gone for the production of soft-core porn, the USI administration apparently went into action.

A source very high up in the USI community spoke with The Eagle’s Quill earlier in the week and stated that everyone the source had contacted agreed that “freedom of speech had been abused,” with the publication of the soft-core porn.

This source communicated to The Eagle’s Quill that we should expect to see new editorial processes put in place that would ensure such photos would not appear in The Aerie in the future.

Such a result is consistent with an incident earlier in this calendar year in which an unfortunate drawing appeared briefly in a public hallway at USI, and, after being alerted, the administration demanded that a new vetting process be put in place for hallway posted images.

There is yet more to this story, and readers should anticipate more postings. 

- posted by Glen Kissel.