Vagina Monologues At Valpo U.

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Why Can't They "Just Get Along"?
V-Day meets P-Day on campus.

By Christina Hoff Sommers

Warning:The following contains adult (in this case, collegiate) language, along with gratuitous references to male and female genitalia.

College administrators have been enthusiastic supporters Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues and schools across the nation celebrate “V-Day” (short for Vagina Day) every year. But when the College Republicans at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island rained on the celebrations of V-Day by inaugurating 'Penis' Day and staging a satire called The 'Penis' Monologues, the official reaction was horror. Two participating students, Monique Stuart and Andy Mainiero, have just received sharp letters of reprimand and have been placed on probation by the Office of Judicial Affairs. The costume of the P-Day “mascot”—a friendly looking “penis” named Testaclese, has been confiscated and is under lock and key in the office of the assistant dean of student affairs, John King.

The P-Day satirists are the first to admit that their initiative is tasteless and crude. But they rightly point out that V-Day is far more extreme. They are shocked that the administration has come down hard on their good-natured spoof, when all along it has been completely accommodating to the in-your-face vulgarity of the vagina activists.

V-Day has now replaced Valentine’s Day on more than 500 college campuses (including Catholic ones). The high point of the day is a performance of Ensler’s raunchy play, which consists of various women talking in graphic, and I mean graphic, terms about their intimate anatomy. The play is poisonously anti-male. Its only romantic scene, if you can call it that, takes place when a 24-year-old woman seduces a young girl (in the original version she was 13 years old, but in a more recent version is played as a 16-year-old.) The woman invites the girl into her car, takes her to her house, plies her with vodka, and seduces her. What might seem like a scene from a public-service kidnapping-prevention video shown to schoolchildren becomes, in Ensler’s play “a kind of heaven.”

The week before V-Day, the Roger Williams campus was plastered with flyers emblazoned with slogans such as “My Vagina is Flirty” and “My Vagina is Huggable.” There was a widely publicized “orgasm workshop.” On the day of the play, the V-warriors sold lollipops in the in the shape of–-guess what? Last year, the student union was flooded with questionnaires asking unsuspecting students questions like “What does your Vagina smell like?” None of this offended the administration or elicited any reprimands, probations, or confiscations.
The campus conservatives artfully (in the college sense of "artful") mimicked the V-Day campaign. They papered the school with flyers that said, “My 'penis' is majestic” and “My 'penis' is hilarious.” The caption on one handout read, “My 'Penis' is studious.” It showed Testaclese reclining on a couch reading Michael Barone’s Hard America, Soft America.

“Testaclese” tipped the scales when he approached the university Provost, Edward J. Kavanagh, outside the student union. Apparently taking him/it for a giant mushroom, Provost Kavanagh cheerfully greeted him. But when Testaclese presented him with an honorary award as a campus “Penis Warrior,” the stunned official realized that it was no mushroom. After this incident, which was recorded on videotape, the promoters of P-Day were ordered to cease circulating their flyers and to keep Testaclese off campus grounds. Mindful of how school officers had never once protested any of the antics of Vagina warriors, the P-warriors did not comply. The Testaclese costume was then confiscated and formal charges followed.

It is easy to understand why school officials would not want a six-foot phallus wandering around campus; nor why they would ask students not to paper the college with posters describing all the things it likes to do. But that is just the sort of thing the vagina warriors have been doing, year after year, on hundreds of campuses. In fact, P-Day at Roger Williams was mild by comparison. Wesleyan College hosted a “C***” workshop; Penn State held a “C***”-fest. At Arizona State, students displayed a 40-foot inflatable plastic vagina. It was not confiscated and no one was ever threatened with probation.

Unhappily, P-Day may be the only effective means of countering V-Day with all its c-fests, graphic lollipops, intrusive questionnaires, outsized effigies of vaginas and its thematic anti-male play. The prospect of public readings from P-Monologues on campuses around the country just might be the reductio ad absurdum that could drive the vagina warriors to the bargaining table. The student activists opposed to V-Day will gladly cancel P-Day the moment the V-warriors abandon their vagina–fests.

But for the short term, college administrators should brace themselves. The rebels at Roger Williams are talking about a Free Testaclese Fund. And word is spreading to other campuses. P-Day and Testaclese will be back next year. And not just in Rhode Island.

—Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She is the co-author of One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Undermines Self-Reliance, just out from St. Martin’s Press.

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This is just me but I'm not going to give one penny to the shelters/homes that receive money from and are a part of this raunchy and vile play. When the Vagina Day (V-Day) and The Vagina Monologues are no longer held and supported by Valparaiso University and the City of Valparaiso, I'll start again to support those organizations as I have in the past.

In addition, I am not going to spend one more penny(other than what I have already spent for season tickets) for concessions, season tickets, or donations to the university until they decide to come to their senses and discontinue this smegma of a play.

[stlvufan]

I suddenly got very busy and could not afford to get sidetracked in this debate. When I finally was able to return, I see the topic is locked. Having read what came after my contribution (which I see achieved exactly its stated goal - to make sure the time between bball games was filled with interesting discourse), I heartily approve, since that's really what this Off-Topic board is for.

1. Rick, I was doing just fine slamming liberals (it takes one to know one), I don't need any help from you.

2. I have no direct knowledge of the play, and I refuse to base my opinion of the material on other people's opinions of it alone.

3. Nevertheless, I believe I stated my reluctance to go see it, and my visceral impression that the play is not worthy of being called respectable. What more do you want from me? I'm not promoting the play, and I'm not going to march on campus if the admin shuts it down.

4. There is a whole aspect of this that I never commented on: the decision making process to actually stage the play. Just because some group asks for funding does not mean the University is obligated to fund them or to provide a venue for them. If I had enough first hand knowledge of the play, I might very well join you in your crusade, Rick.

5. But, you see, I've had some experience with tirades like this against objectionable art. My pastor received a pamphlet from Donald Wildmon of AFA prior to the release of The Last Temptation of Christ. I read the pamphlet, and then I went and saw the movie, and then I laughed out loud at how ridiculous some of the accusations were, being made obviously by people who only had tiny snippets of the script and felt free to interpret them - and in one case even embellish it - in their own chosen context.

6. Before you get started on LToC, I also read the book - available in every library in case those protesting outside The Tivoli in downtown St. Louis weren't aware of it - and I can say that Nikos Kazantzakis created a Jesus that was a cheap, ineffective substitute for the real one. But you see, I know this because I watched the movie and read the book, not because I listened to Donald Wildmon.

7. In spite of all that, I don't mind too much your response because: (1) I've become conditioned to your polemics, and (2), you have succeeded - in spite of yourself - in helping me make the very point I was trying to make: we have to be open to pointed critique that may not be easy to hear.

So, to answer your original question, if "anything goes" includes your right to protest - and to be heard and not dismissed - then count me in, absolutely.

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The Vagina Monologues
Fact versus Fallacy
Credit: Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (http://www.cblpolicyinstitute.org/Monologues%20Fallacies.htm)

Top 10 Common Claims Made by V-Day Organizers/Supporters

1) "The play empowers/liberates women."

False: The Vagina Monologues is a lie. It does not empower women with its message that: women’s identity and image are wrapped up in their sexual organs. True empowerment lies in the heart and the mind. Consider these images from the play:

*

“The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy” is a monologue about a successful tax attorney who leaves her career to become a lesbian dominatrix prostitute, specializing in the use of sexual “props,” i.e. whips, handcuffs and ropes. Liberating or ironically violent?
*

“The Vagina Workshop” describes a woman who attends an orgasm workshop and participates in a group masturbation session. The workshop leader tells the woman her sexual organs are “the essence of me…both the doorbell to my house and the house itself.” This mindset is exactly what the early suffragettes were fighting against.
* “Reclaiming C**t” invites the audience to participate in cult-like chanting of an explicit word to describe a woman’s private parts. And this exercise empowers women because…?

2) "The play raises awareness about violence against women."

False: The play offers women little more than encouragement to view themselves as a single body part and become obsessed with their sexuality and sexual behavior. It does not provide healthy or practical information about how to protect themselves against violence and/or recover from a violent experience.

*

The opening monologue states that playwright Eve Ensler’s biggest anxiety was not about adequately and responsibly addressing violence against women. She wrote this play because she “was worried about [her] own vagina” as far as “what we think about vaginas and even more worried that we don’t think about them.” How about worrying that laws setting punishments for sexual offenders are not strong enough? Or that most women are unfamiliar with basic self-defense techniques?
* Questions raised throughout the play make a mockery of meaningful ways to address and learn about violence against women. They include, “If your vagina got dress, what would it wear?,” “If your vagina could talk, what would it say?,” and “What does a vagina smell like?”

3) "The play is not anti-male."

False: Men are only mentioned in a negative way throughout the play as adulterers, abusers, weirdos, and rapists. Consider the following examples:

*

The cheating husband who “forced” his wife to shave her vagina in the monologue “Hair.”
*

Andy Leftkov, who in “The Flood,” calls his date “a stinky weird girl.”
* Supporters of the play will often ask, “What about Bob?” Bob is featured in “Because He Like To Look At It.” “It” meaning a woman’s vagina. What we learn is that Bob is ordinary, boring, and unappealing. That is until the women character discovers his one redeeming quality: a perverted obsession with women’s private parts.

4) "If you don't want to see the play, you don't have to."

False: Advertisements, promotional materials, and other events surrounding the play around campus are equally offensive and degrading.

*

Roger Williams University was flooded with signs that read, “My Vagina is Huggable,” “My Vagina is Flirty,” and “My Vagina is Regal.”
*

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill allowed tee shirts that read “I ? My Vagina.”
*

Boise State University distributed vagina lollipops.
*

Florida State University had an orgasm workshop.
* Arizona State University constructed a 40-foot inflatable vagina on campus.

5) "The play is not pornographic"

False: It includes extremely graphic descriptions of women’s sexual experiences.

*

One monologue has an explicit depiction of two lesbians having sex. “She’s inside me. I’m inside me.” And it gets much, much worse.
*

“The Vagina Workshop” describes one women’s experience with masturbation. “I bounced and landed, landed and bounced. I came into my own muscles and blood cells and then I just slid into my vagina.”

6) "Opponents of the play are anti-feminist."

False: Those who oppose the play are pro-woman. We reject the effort to convince women to think of themselves as sexual objects. And we object to this play as a way to bring meaningful attention to the serious issue of violence against women. In addition, the early suffragettes—the original feminists—fought hard for equal rights and treatment under the law for women. They fought against the very notion that a woman is reducible to a single body part. By opposing this play, we honor their efforts.

7) "The play does not venerate child rape."

False: The child rape that occurs in “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could” is presented as a sympathetic and spiritually redeeming experience for the young girl who is violated. She describes the rape as “surprising, unexpected, politically incorrect salvation” that “transformed my sorry-ass coochi snorcher and raised it up into a kind of heaven.”

The monologue describes how a 24-year-old woman plies a 16-year-old girl (she is 13 in the original version) with vodka and then sexually violates her. And in the original version, this monologue ended with the line: “If it was rape, it was a good rape.”



8) "Funds raised by the play are ending violence against women."

While some of the funds are being sent to community programs and organizations that help victims of violence, the play itself does not effectively address this issue, its cause or any meaningful solutions. Rather, it encourages the very attitude that often leads to sexual violence: treating women as objects. According to V-Day organizers, groups who have also received proceeds from the play include Equality Now, Feminist.com, gay and lesbian centers, Planned Parenthood, and Girls, Inc.—groups with specific political agendas that reach way beyond violence against women.

9) "The play is based on real women's stories."

False: In her book, Eve Ensler states, “Some of the monologues are close to verbatim interviews, some are composite interviews, and with some I just began with the seed of an interview and had a good time.” The V-Day website provides no evidence these interviews actually occurred or that any of the women mentioned exist.

10) "Opponents of the play are against free speech."

False: Opposing the play and advocating censorship are two very different things. We do not propose violating the First Amendment. In the free marketplace of ideas, the best idea will win out. V-Day Unveiled was created to offer positive approaches that students can use to offer alternatives and/or express their disapproval of the play being performed on campus and with school funds.

We hope the V-Day marketing ploy and the lunacy of the play will be exposed. We also hope women, men, professors, and administrators will reject this demeaning portrayal of women. Until then, our approach is to inform, equip, and support reasonable students who are offended.

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Provident College president bans The Vagina Monologues on campus www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20060120_mono20.1d3cffbc.html
The Rev. Brian J. Shanley,Providence College's new president, calls the popular play "morally objectionable" and says there are better ways to work toward preventing violence against women.


02:05 AM EST on Friday, January 20, 2006
BY TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writer


PROVIDENCE -- For four years, Providence College tolerated student productions of The Vagina Monologues. No more.

The Catholic college's new president, the Rev. Brian J. Shanley, announced Wednesday in a letter on the school's Web site that he had banned the "morally objectionable" performance, confirming that the provocative and internationally successful play still stirs controversy 10 years after it premiered off Broadway.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Father Shanley said that while the play -- a collection of women's stories about their experiences of sexuality and abuse -- raises important issues about violence against women, it has no place on a Catholic college campus.

"When you devote resources and space and, if you will, sanction a work of art, there are discussions on the merits of that art. And on a Catholic campus the lens in which you do that is different than it would be" at a public institution.

Father Shanley said what he found most objectionable in his several readings of the play (he has not seen the performance) was a monologue in which "the alcohol-fueled seduction of a 16-year-old girl by a 24-year-old woman is described as resulting in a 'salvation' and 'a kind of heaven.' "

"What is thus characterized in traditional religious language is instead abusive, demeaning, exploitative, and morally wrong . . ."

Father Shanley's decision to ban the play from campus is "horrible news," said senior Erica Rioux, who was coordinating this year's production. "I feel very upset about it. I just feel this really sets a negative precedent for women at PC."

The play is performed annually around Valentine's Day, or V-Day, as part of a national effort to raise money and awareness on college campuses about violence against women.

Last year, the school's three sold-out performances raised $1,926 for the Sojourner House women's shelter and SOAR (Sisters Overcoming Abusive Relationships).

This year, similar productions are scheduled on 1,050 college campuses around the world, said Susan Swan, a spokeswoman for V-Day, the supporting nonprofit organization based in New York City which works to stop violence against women.

According to the V-Day Web site, four Rhode Island colleges will host Vagina Monologues performances this year: Roger Williams University, the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and Bryant University.

The Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic organization, has in recent years campaigned against the play at Catholic colleges. According to its Web site, 28 other Catholic colleges plan to host the play this year

The society reports that its campaign has had an impact. Last year, Monologues performances occurred at 27 Catholic colleges and universities, compared to 29 in 2004 and 32 in 2003.

Loyola University in New Orleans was among the Catholic schools that hosted the play last year while acknowledging the controversy surrounding it.

In a newspaper story, Loyola president, the Rev. Kevin Wildes said: "There are people who say that the play has no place on a Catholic campus. But this position misses the reality that the play has provoked a good deal of conversation among women and has helped them to name the dehumanizing attitudes and behaviors which reduce them to secular objects."

Asked to comment on Father Wildes' remarks, Father Shanley said: "I would argue you can listen to these voices and learn by them without putting on the production."

Swan says each year a handful of performances are canceled. But overall the play, and its message, spread.

"The proof is in the result and what has happened with the play," she said. "It has become an internationally recognized activist piece," translated in 45 languages . . . ."This play has struck a chord with people and opened up a dialogue about the violence against women."

Father Shanley said the issues the play tackles are worthy of discussion on a Catholic college campus: "All members of the campus are free to read, study, and discuss the play in various settings, especially the classroom." But the performance, he said, cast indignity on female sexuality.

". . . Far from celebrating the complexity and mystery of female sexuality, The Vagina Monologues simplifies and demystifies it by reducing it to the vagina. . . . In contrast, Roman Catholic teaching sees female sexuality as ordered toward a loving giving of self to another in a union of body, mind and soul . . . . "

The news of PC's ban on the play wasn't entirely surprising.

For weeks, Father Shanley had been talking with student coordinators and weighing a decision.

After her first meeting with Father Shanley, Rioux thought the play would still go on but without the school's support; a situation similar to last year when PC administrators prohibited students from advertising the play but still provided a room for its performance.

"But as the weeks unfolded, I was having trouble finding a room," Rioux said, "and when I went to [Father Shanley] and he didn't respond, I started getting suspicious that it wasn't good news."

Father Shanley's decision came just a day after students returned to PC for the spring semester. He said he expected it would provoke much debate as more people learned of it.

Meanwhile, he said, the best way for the college to work toward preventing violence against women was to strengthen its commitment to its annual S.A.V.E. (Sexual Assault and Violence Education) Project, a week of educational presentations that culminates with a "Take Back the Night vigil."

Hopefully the event can be a fundraiser as well, he said.

"I see Project S.A.V.E. as something everyone can enthusiastically wrap their arms around, where the V-Day celebration has been very polarizing. The overarching goals are certainly laudable. The question is: What is the best way on a campus like this for uniting people? For me it's not The Vagina Monologues."

[e-mail]/277-7359

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President's Message Regarding "The Vagina Monologues"



Dear Members of the Providence College Community:

Having spent my first six months trying to learn about the campus culture, I would like to inaugurate a series of letters reflecting on some of the most debated questions that I have heard discussed since I began my ministry as president. I begin with the question of what is the most appropriate way for the Providence College community to work together to prevent violence against women. Some people feel passionately that the college ought to sponsor a V-Day production of The Vagina Monologues, and I have often been queried about my position on this matter. To prepare a response, I have carefully read and studied the play. I have met with some of the student leaders of Women’s Will, the main sponsoring group, to listen to their perspective and share some of my concerns. I have pondered their position, discussed the matter with many people, educated myself about what other Catholic schools have done, and prayed to God for guidance. I have come to the conclusion that a V-Day presentation of The Vagina Monologues is not appropriate for a school with our mission. Let me explain why.

The back cover of my paperback edition of The Vagina Monologues asserts (1) that its principal aim is to be “a celebration of female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery” and (2) that it has been “hailed as a bible for a new generation of women.” I would argue that both of these claims are false. First, far from celebrating the complexity and mystery of female sexuality, The Vagina Monologues simplifies and demystifies it by reducing it to the vagina. In contrast, Roman Catholic teaching sees female sexuality as ordered toward a loving giving of self to another in a union of body, mind, and soul that is ordered to the procreation of new life. The deeper complexity and mystery lies in the capacity of human sexuality, both male and female, to sacramentalize the love of God in marriage. Any depiction of female sexuality that neglects its unitive and procreative dimensions diminishes its complexity, its mystery, and its dignity. Moreover, to explore fully the dignity of woman requires not only a consideration of female sexuality, but also of the capacity of women for intellectual, artistic, moral, and spiritual activity; none of these dimensions are featured in The Vagina Monologues.

Second, the description of the play as a “new bible” is an indication that its depiction of female sexuality is meant to displace the traditional Biblical view that inspires the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The two positions are deeply and diametrically opposed. Nowhere is this clearer than in a monologue wherein the alcohol-fueled seduction of a sixteen-year-old girl by a twenty-four-year-old woman is described as resulting in “salvation” and “a kind of heaven.” What is thus characterized in traditional religious language is instead abusive, demeaning, exploitative, and morally wrong according to the true Bible. Precisely because its depiction of female sexuality is so deeply at odds with the true meaning and morality that the Catholic Church’s teaching celebrates, The Vagina Monologues is not an appropriate play to be performed on our campus. Therefore the college will prohibit the production of The Vagina Monologues.

Doubtless some will reply that this is a violation of artistic freedom. But artistic freedom on a Catholic campus cannot mean the complete license to perform or display any work of art regardless of its intellectual or moral content. Any institution which sanctioned works of art that undermined its deepest values would be inauthentic, irresponsible, and ultimately self-destructive. At Providence College artistic freedom is governed by the values embodied in our mission statement. A Catholic college cannot sanction the performance of works of art that are inimical to the teaching of the Church in an area as important as female sexuality and the dignity of women.

This policy will inevitably raise questions regarding academic freedom. The true meaning of academic freedom is often misunderstood; it is not the license to hold any view that one chooses. Academic freedom is instead always governed by truth. It is the freedom to pursue the truth in a discipline in accord with the accepted canons of inquiry without any impediment by extraneous considerations. Prohibiting a theatrical production of The Vagina Monologues does not prohibit free inquiry about the play. All members of the campus are free to read, study, and discuss the play in various settings, especially the classroom. It is perfectly appropriate that we study texts that have diverse views in order both to broaden our understanding of others and to bring our own views into sharper focus. I fully expect that one result of this communication will be some controversy. As a long-time student of St. Thomas Aquinas, I think disputes are an important part of education, so long as they are conducted with charity. While arguments about intellectual positions help us to learn from each other, attacks on persons do not.

Instead of producing The Vagina Monologues, the best way for Providence College to work together to combat violence against women is to strengthen its commitment to support Project S.A.V.E. (Sexual Assault and Violence Education). Project S.A.V.E is a collaborative effort of many student groups to educate the campus about how to prevent violence against women and help survivors heal. The week-long effort will begin with a Mass on April 23rd to pray for victims and survivors of sexual and domestic violence. It will continue with educational presentations, displays, and performances, and culminate with the annual Take Back The Night vigil and walk. The college’s administration will work directly with student leaders to make this week the centerpiece of our efforts to educate everyone about violence against women. I shall personally take part in events that week, and I encourage everyone in the community to play a role in making the week a success.

It is my hope and prayer that we can move beyond disagreement on the merits of a particular text and work together on a cause that unites us all. Let us strive for a deeper appreciation of God’s gift of human sexuality in all its complexity and mystery. Let us endeavor to educate the community about the peculiar threat to human dignity that is violence against women. Let us work together for the healing of all who have survived such violence. If our efforts are grounded in truth and animated by love, then by the grace of God at work within us, our efforts will bear much fruit.

Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P., Ph.D.

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The Cardinal Newman Society’s protest of “The Vagina Monologues” performances and public readings on Catholic campuses across the United States has yielded a marked decline in 2006. A record-low 22 Catholic colleges and universities hosted the “Monologues” in February and March, a significant decline from 27 performances or readings in 2005, 29 in 2004, and 32 in 2003.

The sponsoring V-Day organization (www.vday.org) announced performances of the sexually explicit and morally offensive play at 34 Catholic colleges and universities in the United States this year. Only 22 of those actually occurred, including the University of Detroit Mercy student performance held at nearby Marygrove College, also a Catholic institution. Officials at eight of the institutions persuaded or prevented students from presenting the play on campus, including Aquinas College in Michigan, Assumption College, Carlow University, the Catholic University of America, Marquette University, New York Medical College, Providence College and Seton Hall University. Four other performances announced by V-Day were canceled—at Sacred Heart University, Saint Xavier University, Siena College and the University of Scranton—but there is no indication that officials halted the events.

Although the University of San Diego did not host the “Monologues,” its Women’s Center and the Associated Students at USD co-sponsored a group outing to see the play at the University of California San Diego, preceded by dinner in the USD faculty dining room and followed by a next-day luncheon to discuss reactions to the performance.


"Every year, more Catholic college and university leaders are coming to their senses about this vile play," said Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) president Patrick J. Reilly. "Still, it’s astonishing that officials could not immediately recognize a conflict with the values that are fundamental to Catholic higher education. Which of the remaining 22 institutions will be last to embrace lesbian activity, masturbation, statutory rape and extramarital perversity?"



Each year around Valentine’s Day—re-designated “V-Day” by the radical V-Day organization—students and faculty on campuses worldwide take to the stage chanting obscenities, telling tales of lesbian activity and masturbation, and declaring the lesbian rape of a teenage girl her “salvation” which raised her into “a kind of heaven.” Since 2003 the Cardinal Newman Society has rallied its more than 18,000 members to oppose the play on American Catholic campuses by writing and e-mailing college and university presidents.


This year, signs of the campaign’s success include:


At Providence College, which has hosted the “Monologues” in past years, President Rev. Brian Shanley, O.P., banned this year’s performance. “[F]ar from celebrating the complexity and mystery of female sexuality, ‘The Vagina Monologues’ simplifies and demystifies it by reducing it to the vagina,” Shanley announced in January. “…Any institution which sanctioned works of art that undermined its deepest values would be inauthentic, irresponsible, and ultimately self-destructive.”


Very Rev. David O’Connell, C.M., President of the Catholic University of America, repeated his consistent opposition to the play by forbidding a drama student performance. “I find the play crude, ugly, vulgar and unworthy of staging or performing at CUA in any venue whatsoever,” O’Connell announced in January. “…t has become a symbol each year of the desire of some folks to push Catholic campuses over the edge of good and decent judgment.”

The new president of the University of Notre Dame, Rev. John Jenkins, C.S.C., spoke out against “The Vagina Monologues” in a campus speech in January. This year’s performance was restricted to a classroom and ticket sales were forbidden. Jenkins has indicated that he is preparing a new policy on “academic freedom” that is likely to permanently restrict or ban the “Monologues.”

For the third year, Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort-Wayne-South Bend spoke out against the play at the University of Notre Dame. In a statement published in the South Bend Tribune, D’Arcy complained that “the souls of the young are in danger of being drawn into a state of moral confusion. …I regret the sponsorship of this play by Notre Dame again this year, and pray it will be the last time.”

Increasingly outraged by the success of the CNS campaign, “The Vagina Monologues” playwright Eve Ensler and her V-Day Web site have posted a full “resistance” section opposing the CNS efforts.

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Vagina Monologues will 'corrupt Uganda's morals'

Kampala, Uganda

www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa&articleid=197876

18 February 2005 04:35

Ugandan authorities have banned the internationally acclaimed women's rights play The Vagina Monologues as an affront to public morality and threatened to arrest organisers if they follow through on plans to stage benefit performances, officials said on Friday.

Information Minister Nsaba Buturo said the play has been deemed offensive and vulgar and will corrupt public morals if performed in Uganda.

"As government, we have agreed that this play should not be staged in the country because the language used is offensive, vulgar and not according to the country's culture," he said.

Written by United States playwright and feminist Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues is based on several hundred interviews with women around the world. It celebrates female sexuality and focuses on the abuses women suffer.

Three Ugandan rights groups had planned to stage the play beginning on Saturday to raise funds for war-torn northern Uganda and to promote their campaign against violence against women in the country.

Buturo, however, maintained that only a small part of the script deals with violence against women.

"The rest is a promotion of homosexuality, lesbianism and worship of the female sexual organ," he said, noting that Uganda's censorship board, the Media Council, had also objected to The Vagina Monologues.

"To the extent that the play promotes illegal, unnatural sexual acts, homosexuality and prostitution, it should be and is hereby banned," the council said in a ruling this week.

The council said the play can only be staged if the portions it deemed offensive are removed, an option the organisers rejected on Friday. They cancelled the performances.

"This play needs to be performed in its entirety or not at all," they said in a statement.

One of the organisers, Sarah Mukasa, programme manager for Akina Mama wa Afrika, said the group is considering legal action to overturn the ban.

However, she took solace in the fact that the controversy has highlighted their problem of violence against women in Uganda.

"Although the play has been banned, our point has been made," she said. "Our major concern was to raise issues about violence against women and sexual harassment."

The play has been performed in more than 39 countries since 1996, including Iraq, sometimes with major stars such as Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon and Whoopi Goldberg.

But it has not been without controversy.

Last year, authorities in China banned two productions of The Vagina Monologues -- one in Beijing and one in Shanghai -- and a repeat performance of the play was banned in Malaysia in 2002 after complaints about its content. -- Sapa-AFP

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'Vagina Monologues' canceled at Xavier over content issues


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By Kristina Goetz
The Cincinnati Enquirer


Because of concerns over content and language, Xavier University announced Tuesday that three productions of the Vagina Monologues, scheduled for this weekend in the theater at the Gallagher Student Center, have been canceled.

But some students said they are determined the play be staged.

Rachael Amend, 19, a freshman from Covington, said students plan to perform the play at 3 p.m. on the residential mall on campus anyway Friday in protest of the decision.

"I just feel that there's a lot of students on campus who don't have a Catholic or a Jesuit background," she said. "Their opinions are different and they want to express them. How can you cancel art? A lot of people are upset. Their opinion is going to be heard no matter what."

The program was an initiative by the Student Activities Council to raise awareness about ending violence against women and to raise money for a shelter that counsels and supports victims of abuse.

Xavier's president, the Rev. Father Michael J. Graham, S.J., said the focus on that cause was overshadowed by concerns about themes in the play.

"I, as the leader of this university, in consultation with my executive team and others, have decided that the presentation of the Vagina Monologues is not the appropriate vehicle for Xavier University to raise awareness about violence against women," he said in a statement.

Graham said he tried to balance two considerations that are often in "dynamic tension."

"The first is being faithful to our Catholic, Jesuit character that is at the heart of and the very means by which we interpret our educational mission," he said. "Second is to be true to our nature as a university where the discussion of important and often controversial issues is essential to the educational process."

The president added in his statement that he has asked staff members to work with faculty and students to present other programs that show the effects of violence against women.

Members of the Student Activities Council could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

E-mail [e-mail]

[rick]

X-Rated Academia
Eric Langborgh
www.academia.org/campus_reports/2000/March_2000_1.html

At hundreds of campuses across the country, Valentine's Day has taken on a whole new meaning. Feminists have convinced school administrations that the day should instead be known as "V-Day," short for "Vagina-Day."

Eve Ensler's controversial off-Broadway play, The Vagina Monologues, is the impetus behind V-Day. Ostensibly a play to raise awareness about violence against women (the "V" also stands for Victory over Violence), the performance instead glorifies and promotes sado-masochism (S&M), uninhibited lesbian sex, and even statutory rape. Far from meeting the educational criteria of public institutions of higher learning, critics say, this production descends into political proselytization and mindless eroticism.

"My main thought was that it didn't accomplish what it set out to do," offered Truth in Politics' Peter Shipley, "and that was to prevent rape."

According to Monologues author Eve Ensler, "You are your vagina." V-Day began in 1998 as a one-day event in New York City, and in 1999 the event went international with a shift to London. The Vagina Monologues also appeared on 65 campuses in the U.S. in 1999. With the completion of the V-Day 2000 College Initiative, the show has now reached over 200 campuses in North America. Both large and small schools have hosted the event, including Duke University, Dartmouth College, the University of Mississippi, and the City College of San Francisco. Some schools, like Brown University, have devoted more than a month to V-Day 2000. Brown will have hosted over 16 performances of the Monologues, as well as a masturbation workshop called "Sex for One," so that women may achieve sexual fulfillment free of the danger supposedly inherent in male-female relationships, by the time their festivities end in early April.

But rather than provide educational tools to fight violence against women, the play "actually promoted the treating of women as mere sex objects," Shipley informed Campus Report following his attendance of the play at the State University of New York in New Paltz (SUNY-New Paltz).

Indeed, of the 107 pages of the actual monologues, a generous count yields only 15 which truly deal with violence against women. Much of the "oppression" of the vagina depicted in The Vagina Monologues was actually embarrassment over entering puberty, a topic that consumed a whole skit in the play.

According to many attendees of these plays across America, the message men in particular received from watching The Vagina Monologues was not one of increased concern for the dignity of women, but one of pornographic pleasure in the treating of women as sex objects.

"The men were just eating it up," Shipley noted. "These guys were hooting and hollering and the women were saying these things. To me it promotes rape."

These "things" the women actors in the play were saying are quite controversial, to say the least. Even during the skit on menstruation, the theme of sexual deviancy was very evident. Said one of the respondents in Ensler's play regarding her physical advancement to womanhood, " used OB [tampons] and liked putting my fingers up there."

An Appropriate Use of Tax Funds?

In at least one place, the backlash over the performance of The Vagina Monologues has been pronounced. Already disturbed by sex conferences held at SUNY-New Paltz in previous years, this latest event has finally sparked one college council member to call for the heads of those responsible. At least one member is also considering retiring from the board in protest.

On February 13, in a three-page letter addressed to SUNY Chancellor Robert King and also sent to New York Governor George Pataki, Ithaca College Senior Stacey Branscum illustrates an orgasm during the Monologues. George Morton of the SUNY-New Paltz College Council not only called for the review process for SUNY-New Paltz President Roger Bowen to be reopened, but suggested he resign, as well.

Bowen, who authorized and endorsed two sex conferences in 1997, "plainly misrepresented the controversial content" of The Vagina Monologues in a January 27 meeting, comparing it with "other plays students have performed such as Peter Pan," charged Morton. At that meeting, Bowen assured the Council that "the most sensational thing about the performance was the name itself" and that it was a relatively unshocking, conventional play.

Morton went on to ask, "Do employees at SUNY-New Paltz who promote lewd, obscene, vulgar, intimidating, or threatening behaviors of self-expression [all activities forbidden in the "Campus Regulations and Judicial Procedures" for students to engage in] have any place within the academic environment?"

A spokesman for Bowen refused to answer specific questions, but did release an official statement from Bowen saying: "I find it very regrettable that George Morton has chosen to express his views in a way that attempts to detract from the enormous achievements of the institution we both have been called to serve."

Chancellor King was out of the office for the week and was unavailable for comment, though his office stated that a review of Bowen has just been completed and a report will be out shortly. Calls for the review process to be reopened in light of the recent controversy have gone unanswered.

Morton is not alone in his criticism of the New Paltz president. "This should be an item in his review, alongside the rest of his record," SUNY Board of Trustees member Candace DeRussy told Campus Report. "At a time when the budget is always being discussed—and it's obvious that funds are precious—what a thing to be doing with public funds."

Tom Conway of the College Council at SUNY-New Paltz agreed that "the issues Mr. Morton raised definitely call for fair and careful consideration."

Conway expressed to Campus Report a sense of betrayal by Bowen, who Conway thought would give a straight account after the confrontation a few years ago over two misrepresented sex conferences. "It is not a fair characterization whatsoever that the most sensational part of the play is the title," he asserted. "It is a direct assault upon the most fundamental of moral values."

Added Tom Carroll of the public interest group CHANGE-New York, "Questionable campus events such as these only serve to divert attention and resources from the legitimate academic reforms underway, apparently with little purpose other than to shock and inflame the taxpaying public."

And these "questionable campus events" are taking place at a time when trustees and chancellors "are in the midst of very serious efforts to raise academic standards throughout their systems," he continued. Conway charged, "[SUNY employees] speak for the people of the State of New York, and they should not be sponsoring that kind of junk."

A Springboard to Promote Lesbianism

The Vagina Monologues has been performed by a variety of actresses and noted female personalities at its off-Broadway locale, including Winona Ryder, Barbara Walters, Alanis Morissette, and Whoopi Goldberg. On the campuses the play is being performed by college students, sometimes with only one student reading the parts, other times with a huge cast of characters acting them out. Proceeds raised during V-Day 2000 are divided evenly between local, national, and international feminist groups, including Equality Now and Human Rights Watch. The fund is administered by the Ms. Foundation for Women.

The V-Day 2000 College Initiative was made possible through its sponsor, Self magazine, which quite regularly features stories on health and fitness issues and uninhibited sex, like "Put Libido Lies to Bed" and "How Sexually Satisfied Are You?" in the recent March issue. In addition, corporations like ABC and Sony have provided financial assistance, and Eve Ensler has given blanket permission for anyone to perform The Vagina Monologues during the V-Day initiative to "raise awareness about sexual violence against women." Feminist.com, which hosts the V-Day website, is supported by the Feminist Majority and is affiliated with the Ms. Foundation for Women and Planned Parenthood.

At Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, sophomore Erica Brookhyser found an opportunity to "talk about things that aren't usually discussed" in her portrayal of Eve Ensler in her school's performance of The Vagina Monologues. "Female sexuality has been in the closet for a long time," she said.

Brookhyser said the play affected her views about feminism. "It went beyond feminism as a political stance and was more about feminism in everyday life," she told the Bradley Scout.

Senior Patricia Linwood agreed. "You don't have to be a part of sexual violence," stated Linwood, who depicted a woman who dislikes her vagina in a skit called "Because He Liked to Look at It." "If you know your body, if you love your body, you're more likely not to be a part of [sexual violence]."

As Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, "There are no admirable men in the ‘Monologues.'" The men who do appear in the play include "a callous unfaithful spouse, a rapist child molester, a 16th-century lawyer who tormented and convicted a ‘witch,' 19th-century doctors who mutilate girls to prevent them from masturbating, two vile boys and Serbian gang rapists."

So the play does address violence against women, but in less then 15 pages of so-called "Vagina Facts." The remedy for sexual violence lies The remedy for sexual violence, according to the book, includes ample promotion of lesbian sex, female masturbation, and, ironically, sado-masochism. in the rest of the book, apparently, which includes ample promotion of lesbian sex, female masturbation, and, ironically, S&M.

Most graphic was the depiction of the statutory rape of a 13-year old girl by a 24-year old lesbian. Expressed the lesbian rapist to the girl, "Your vagina, untouched by man, smells so nice, so fresh, wish I could keep it that way forever." She later tells the girl's mom over the phone, who was worried about sexual harassment of her daughter by boys, "Trust me, there's [sic] no boys around here."

The girl then confides to the audience, "She gently and slowly lays me out on the bed and just our bodies rubbing together makes me come. Then she does everything to me and my coochi snorcher that I had always thought was nasty before, and wow." The lesson the little girl learns from this encounter? "I'll never need to rely on a man," she concludes.

Supporters of the play, though, say that the passage is taken out of context and that critics are missing the point. "The idea that Eve Ensler is promoting statutory rape is outrageous," denied Bob Fennell, press agent for the play at New York City's West Side Theater.

Irene Byrnes, a philosophy professor at Broome Community College in Binghamton, New York, claimed that any interpretation of the monologue as an endorsement of statutory rape is a complete misrepresentation. Instead, it is a "political statement" about sexual politics, gender identity and the female body, she said.

However, a quick glance at the script shows just how far Ensler has gone in promoting this type of rape. The 13 year-old girl's part in the play reads: "Now people say that it was a kind of rape…. Well, I say, if it was rape, it was a good rape then, a rape that turned my sorry-ass coochi snorcher into a kind of heaven."

That the play is a "political statement," one that goes beyond feminism as ballot box politics to "feminism in everyday life," as Brookhyser said, is not disputed by anyone. The lifestyle of a true feminist, then, is laid out extensively in extremely off-color language throughout The Vagina Monologues:
• "I love vaginas. I love women. I do not see them as separate things." pg. 89
• "As a lesbian, I need you to start from a lesbian-centered place, not framed within a heterosexual context." pg. 99
• "As lesbians, we know about vaginas. We touch them. We lick them. We play with them. We tease them. We notice the clitoris swell. We notice our own." pg. 100
• "I wore outrageous outfits when I dominated women—lace and silk and leather—and I used props: whips, handcuffs, rope, dildos." pg. 90
• "Sometimes I used force, but not violent, oppressing force, more like dominating…. Sometimes I used props—I loved props—sometimes I made the woman find her moan in front of me" pg. 93-94
• "My vagina amazed me. I couldn't speak when it came my turn in the workshop... I had awakened to what the woman who ran the workshop called ‘vaginal wonder.' I just wanted to lie there on the mat, my legs spread, examining my vagina forever." pg. 46
• "To love women, to love our vaginas, to know them and touch them and be familiar with who we are and what we need…. ‘You have to talk about entering vaginas,' she said. ‘Come on,' I say, ‘Come in.'" pg. 102

Pornography For Credit

With the V-Day commemorations nearing completion for the year 2000, pornography and homosexuality "As a lesbian, I need you to start from a lesbian-centered place, not framed within a heterosexual context." —The Vagina Monologues has become even more entrenched in academia. While certain professors at SUNY-New Paltz and other schools demanded their students attend and report on The Vagina Monologues or get a bad grade, other courses and conferences devoted to the subjects abound throughout academia.

SUNY-New Paltz hosted two such conferences in 1997. Over two successive weekends, the school hosted "Revolting Behavior: The Challenges of Women's Sexual Freedom" and "Subject to Desire: Refiguring the Body." Conference topics included "How to Get What You Want in Bed " (an "interactive group workshop"), "Sex Toys for Women," "Safe, Sane, and Consensual S/M: An Alternative Way of Loving," and "Vulva's School." The latter was staged by Carol Schneemann, a "performance artist" best known for an act in which she slowly unravels a scroll from her vagina while reading it aloud to the audience. Workshop leaders throughout the conferences several times invited the audience to see them privately after the sessions to learn more, including how to join S&M clubs.

President Bowen referred to such conferences at the time as "business as usual," and indeed, they are.

The following year saw pornography and homosexual activism officially recognized as "scholarly" activities at many schools:
• Dartmouth entertained self-described performance artist Holly Hughes, who served as a scholar in residence over a five-day period. Hughes' works include Lady Dick, Clit Notes, and Well of Horniness.
• Cheryl Dunye, the writer, director, and star of Watermelon Woman, popped-up at the University of Cincinnati. Dunye's appearance highlighted the school's Fourth Annual Women's Film Festival, which featured Our Mom's a Dyke and Girls Like Us.
• The Fifth Annual Emory University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Film Festival appeared on campus to the consternation of many. Among the films shown were Badass Supermama, Hermaphrodites with Attitude, and Chained Girls. Also playing was the "ever popular classic," Liquid Sky, a film "in which space aliens, drug addicts, and lesbians cavort in high style until a UFO ends it all."
• UC-Santa Cruz played host to Exposed! The University of California Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Annual Conference and General Assembly. The conference featured screenings of Blood Sisters: Leather Dykes & Sadomasochism and Daddy and the Muscle Academy. Workshops at the gathering included "Latex Lovers: A Workshop on Queer Womyn Safe-Sex," "Transgender Workplace Issues," and "Town, Gown, and T-Rooms: the University and Public Homosexual Sex."

Credit-bearing courses in pornography abound in academia, as well. Ironically, it is women—and not "dirty old men"—who teach most of these classes.

At UC-Berkeley, Linda Williams teaches a graduate course called "Pornographies On/scene." Movies viewed in class include Deep Throat, The Opening of Misty Beethoven, Suburban Dykes, and John Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut. Williams is also the author of the book, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible.' Hard Core has gained a wide readership among academics and is now available in a revised, illustrated edition.

Said Williams of her stint of teaching pornography to undergraduates while at UC-Irvine, "They used to have trouble with gay-oriented films: when it came to anal penetration, they just couldn't watch." Williams also delivered the keynote address at last August's World Pornography Conference at UC-Northridge.

Other books taught from on campus include Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Pornography in America by Northwestern University professor Laura Kipnis, and Chris Straaner's (New York University) Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Reorientation in Film and Video. Joanna Frueh, an art historian at the University of Nevada-Reno, has written a book called Erotic Faculties, in which she shares nude photographs and her sexual fantasies with her readers.

In addition to the above several schools, Columbia University offers courses in "porn studies," and porn star Annie Sprinkle is a regular lecturer on college campuses.

The list is nearly endless, all under the guise of free speech and academic freedom. But as critics point out, free speech and academic freedom have nothing to do with it. Instead, it has everything to do with academic responsibility and the improper use of public funds. There is a difference, after all, between academic freedom and academic anarchy.

[valporun]

Hey Rick, Do you have a real life? It always seems like you spend all the daylight hours in Valparaiso finding more and more conservative blather to paste on this message board hoping everyone will spend the 5+ hours a night they might have to sit here and read all of it. Sure, some of it is enticing to want to read, but I find that I can't tolerate it. I mean if you really want to voice your opinion in this way...START YOUR OWN CONSERVATIVE "BS" BLOG!!! There are many here that would rather just read about basketball and real topics that concern everyone of us. Nothing against you, but I despise Ann Coulter..I don't find her interesting to listen to at all. She takes a lot of the things she writes about out of the intended context. I thought this same thing about Bill O'Reilly until I noticed that he's trying to say that everyone should get involved in politics and have their own voice..sadly, a man like O'Reilly has his real opinions hidden behind the conservative hogwash that FOX News wants him to read to America every weeknight.

I'm not afraid to admit that I'm tired of scads and scads of message board topics that promote your conservatism. I, for one, am done with it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this same way. Go on now and doing something real, like spreading some of this opinion in doing a job that can benefit those who need your kind of benefits.

[rick]

valporun said:

Hey Rick, Do you have a real life? It always seems like you spend all the daylight hours in Valparaiso finding more and more conservative blather to paste on this message board hoping everyone will spend the 5+ hours a night they might have to sit here and read all of it. Sure, some of it is enticing to want to read, but I find that I can't tolerate it. I mean if you really want to voice your opinion in this way...START YOUR OWN CONSERVATIVE "BS" BLOG!!! There are many here that would rather just read about basketball and real topics that concern everyone of us. Nothing against you, but I despise Ann Coulter..I don't find her interesting to listen to at all. She takes a lot of the things she writes about out of the intended context. I thought this same thing about Bill O'Reilly until I noticed that he's trying to say that everyone should get involved in politics and have their own voice..sadly, a man like O'Reilly has his real opinions hidden behind the conservative hogwash that FOX News wants him to read to America every weeknight.

I'm not afraid to admit that I'm tired of scads and scads of message board topics that promote your conservatism. I, for one, am done with it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this same way. Go on now and doing something real, like spreading some of this opinion in doing a job that can benefit those who need your kind of benefits.

You don't like it, don't read it. No one is forcing you to read anything I post. Just ignore it. You'll feel better in the morning. It's pretty pathetic that you feel you must read all that I post. This is off-topic, not Valpo basketball. Control yourself. Stop reading my posts. You don't like Ann Coulter because she puts a mirror in front of liberals who often have a hard time seeing the truth about themselves. Don't read her either. She's intelligent and right on the money when she exposes liberal folly. I know it must pain you to see how others view liberals. But the truth is the truth.

[rick]

One other thing. You should try and be more tolerant of views that differ from your own. Isn't that the Liberal mantra?

[rick]

Ensler's Grisly Vagina Monologues

By CAMILLE PAGLIA

That feminism is not yet out of the woods, despite the triumph in the 1990s of the pro-sex wing to which I belong, is shown by the garish visibility of Eve Ensler and her "Vagina Monologues," which have apparently spawned copycat cells on many campuses. (The students and faculty at my urban arts college are far too busy and sensible for this kind of thing.) With her obsession with male evil and her claimed history of physical abuse and mental breakdowns, Ensler is the new Andrea Dworkin, minus Medusan hair and rumpled farm overalls. Wasn't one Dworkin quite enough?
The perversion of feminism that Ensler represents -- turning Valentine's Day, the one holiday celebrating romantic harmony between the sexes, into a grisly memento mori of violence against women -- has been well demonstrated by the ever-alert Christina Hoff Sommers, who gave early warning in her Feb. 11 article in the Wall Street Journal last year (as well as in her campus lectures, media appearances and an article in the Feb. 8 USA Today). That the psychological poison of Ensler's archaic creed of victimization is being spread to impressionable women students is positively criminal.

The buffoonish hooting and hollering incited by Ensler's supposedly naughty play is really the hysterical desperation of aging women who have never come to terms with the cruel realities of nature and who cannot face the humiliating fact that, despite their accomplishments, they will always be culturally swept away by the young and beautiful. That in the year 2001 the group chanting of crude four-letter words for female genitalia is viewed as some sort of radical liberation implies that the real issue in the "Vagina Monologues" isn't male oppression but bourgeois repression -- the malady of the dainty, decorous professional class that was created in the first century after the Industrial Revolution.



excerpted from:
"The Bush Look "
By CAMILLE PAGLIA
02/28/01

[rick]

History professor addresses “The Vagina Monologues” on the ND campus
An open letter to Father John Jenkins, CSC:
I write to object to your decision to permit the continued regular production of "The Vagina Monologues" on our campus. I write in this public manner to alert our faculty, colleagues and our treasured students that not all members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, to which we belong, endorse your decision. Speaking for myself, I find the decision deeply damaging to Notre Dame and its mission as a Catholic university. It is a decision that I beg you to reconsider and to reverse.

When you were appointed president of Notre Dame there was hope that you might address and reverse the attenuation and drift in our Catholic mission that characterized our recent past. My own hope was that you would address urgently such crucial issues as faculty hiring, the development of a curriculum that truly conveys the richness of the Catholic intellectual tradition to our students and the insidious effects on teaching and learning of the increasing corporate ethos at Notre Dame.

For whatever reasons, you chose to place your initial emphasis on the regular production and sponsorship by elements of the university of "The Vagina Monologues" and "The Queer Film Festival." You put forth the position that "an event which has the implicit or explicit sponsorship of the university as a whole, or one of its units, or a university-recognized organization, and which either is or appears to be in name or content clearly and egregiously contrary to or inconsistent with the fundamental values of a Catholic university, should not be allowed at Notre Dame." This was a position of such obvious good sense that I never considered that you would retreat from it. Sadly, you have done precisely that.

In asking why you would reverse a sound position, which you obviously had reached after much thought and prayer, one must conclude that you were influenced by those contributors to the debate who favored the continued production of "The Vagina Monologues." Presumably, you were influenced by the young women who produce this play and somehow see it as a contribution to the prevention of violence against women. Undoubtedly, you were influenced by the convictions of certain senior arts and letters faculty that any restriction on this play would damage our academic "reputation" — and especially among those "preferred peer schools" whose regard we crave. Whatever the reasons, I must tell you that your decision is being portrayed as involving your "backing down." Indeed, it is hard to understand it in any other terms.

You must know that in taking this decision you have brought most joy to those who care least about Notre Dame's Catholic mission. You have won for yourself a certain short-term popularity with some students and certain faculty but have done real damage to our beloved school and its distinct place in American higher education. By your decision you move us further along the dangerous path where we ape our secular peers and take all our signals from them. Knowing you and having conversed with you on matters relating to Notre Dame's Catholic mission in the past, I suspect that you recognize this in your own heart. Yet, you seemingly have let the possibility of some protest cause you to back off your own stated position. You were called to be courageous and you settled for being popular. This is not your best self. This is not genuine leadership.

In your recent "Closing Statement" you reveal a level of naiveté about the process of a Catholic university engaging the broad culture that is striking and deeply harmful to our purpose as a Catholic university. We live at a time, as Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter pointed out some years ago, when the elite culture is programmed to trivialize religion. Furthermore, much of popular culture is deeply antithetical to religious conviction and practice. It offers a worldview completely at odds with any Catholic vision. It is a worldview from which none of us can be sequestered and, indeed, many of our students arrive here far more deeply influenced by the reigning culture than by faith convictions.

Amidst this larger context you are ready to permit the continued production and promotion of a play which, as our colleague Paolo Carroza rightly put it, "seems to reduce the meaning and value of women's lives to their sexual experiences and organs, reinforcing a perspective on the human person that is itself fundamentally a form of violence." Dialogue with this point of view is ridiculous. It should be contested and resisted at Notre Dame but never promoted. Notre Dame must hold to a higher view of the dignity of women and men. Might I ask that if this play does not meet your criteria of an "expression that is overt and insistent in its contempt for the values and sensibilities of this university," then what would?

My fear is that you have been "spooked" by the fear of negative publicity if you were to "suppress speech on this campus." Here, it seems, you have a special opportunity to rethink your position. Know well that there is much hypocrisy abroad in the American academy on the issue of "academic freedom." Note that NYU had no difficulty recently in suppressing the "free speech" rights of the students who wanted to discuss and display the Danish cartoons. Note that folk at Brown University get by with a "speech code" that bans all "verbal behavior" that may cause "feelings of impotence, anger or disenfranchisement." In the American academy it is only certain kinds of speech that gets protected. And, as Professor Gary Anderson pointed out in his constructive contribution to this debate, a rather narrow range of politically correct views tends to prevail in the faculties of many institutions, which influences what that "speech" is. Notre Dame presently has a wider range of perspectives represented than most institutions who are forever prattling on about their diversity. (They are all "diverse" in the same predictable way.)

Please have the confidence to shape Notre Dame into a truly distinct institution. Take up the challenge to clarify for our secular peers that Notre Dame allows — as they do not — "classroom engagement with religious beliefs precisely as religious" (as Brad Gregory put it so well). Reveal to them with the eloquence of which you are capable that the very values and convictions, which allow us to consider a whole range of questions that they cannot, also necessitate us to restrict the repeated public performance and promotion of works which are deeply offensive to our values.

John, let me commend you for your admirable goal of seeking to find "ways to prevent violence against women." Over my years of teaching and pastoral service at Notre Dame I have sought to encourage my female students to appreciate their innate dignity and to truly respect themselves. I have been blessed to come to know some amazing women whom I now count as dear friends. Drawing on conversations with such women about the circumstances that they find at Notre Dame leads me to suggest that your rather elaborate committee formed to pursue this goal has the whiff of a public relations exercise about it. The painful reality is that much of the violence against women in our society results from a sick view that separates sex from love and genuine relationship, from the commodification of sex, from the portrayal of women as objects, from the blatant refusal of some men to treat women with dignity and respect. Yet how will the committee be able seriously to address such issues when you have approved the continued production of a play that reduces women to body parts? Surely you see the contradiction here? Could I request that this be an early item for consideration by this committee?

What I ask of you in this letter will require you to dig deep into your heart and soul and to re-open a matter of which I am sure you want to be well rid. I suspect you have had moments when you wished never to hear of "The Vagina Monologues" again, and we both know that there are many other important matters to which you must attend. But careful readers of works like George Marsden's "The Soul of the American University" know that similar decisions to yours, which conformed religious schools to their secular peers, inexorably led them down a dangerous path to the full surrender of their religious mission and identity. Regrettably, places like Georgetown University are well advanced on this course. Don't let us merely follow them. To do so you would be a betrayal of our forebears in Holy Cross. Instead, Notre Dame must lead the way in American Catholic higher education. Please go back to your best self and to your original instincts and position on this matter. Don't embarrass those of us who want to work with you to build a great Catholic university. Lead us.

Know of my prayers for you during this holiest of weeks.
Father Bill Miscamble, C.S.C.
Associate Professor of History
Notre Dame

This letter was printed in the University of Notre Dame, Observer, April 11, 2006