From: tsdavies@rodan.syr.EDU (Real life?  Ha!)
Subject: Re: "Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Summary: Some censorship which took place after the _Ulysses_ decision.
In-reply-to: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu's message of 11 Aug 92 17:11:26 GMT
Organization: Sam Hill Cabal, DS
	<1992Aug11.112000.4307@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <C28IR9A@taronga.com>
	<1992Aug11.171126.2448@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 02:26:07 EDT


Carl> == Carl Kadie <kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu>

Carl> *  Has textual material been found to be obscene in Canada or the U.S.
Carl>    since _Ulysses_?
Carl> *  Has a university ever been found guilty of obscenity?
Carl> *  Has a university even ever been charged with obscenity?
Carl> *  Did the university administrators bother to get legal advice?
Carl> *  Did the university administrators bother to discuss the issues
Carl>    with representatives of the faculty and students?

Carl> (To the best of my knowledge, in every case, the answer to all these
Carl> questions is "no").

I can't speak to the rest of the questions, but the answer to the
first is definitely "yes".  (I suspect you may be right on the others,
though.)

To name a few (the _Ulysses_ decision is made in 1933):

	1943-5	Various crime magazine distributors are prosecuted
		for distributing various crime magazines under New
		York obscenity law.  (Law struck down by the U.S.
		Supreme Court in _Winters_ v. _New York_.)

	1946	Edmund Wilson's _Memoirs of Hecate County_ is seized
		by John Sumner (the head of the New York Society for
		the Suppression of Vice) under State obscenity laws.
		(Upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in (I believe)
		_Doubleday_ v. _New York_.)  The book was not republished
		in the United States until the 1960's, by a subsidiary
		of Farrar, Straus, and Young.

	1955	Samuel Roth imprisoned on charges of sending obscenity
		through the mails (including advertisements and the
		third issue of _American Aphrodite_, a hardbound
		magazine which contained Aubrey Beardsley's "Venus and
		Tannhauser" -- upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in
		_Roth_ v. _United States_). 

	1958	The University of Chicago suppresses the Winter 1958,
		issue of the _Chicago Review_, which contains material
		by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.  This
		material was published in the first issue of _Big
		Table_ in March, 1959, (by the editors who resigned
		from the _Chicago Review_), and is seized by the
		United States Post Office, and ruled obscene by the
		Post Office's hearing examiner.  It is set free by
		Judge Julius Hoffmann under _Roth_ v. _United States_.

	1961	Henry Miller's _Tropic of Cancer_ is published by
		Grove Press and is declared obscene in various parts
		of the country.  The book is finally freed by the U.S.
		Supreme Court in _Grove Press_ v. _Gerstein_ (decided in
		conjunction with _Jacobellis_ v. _Ohio_, which involved a
		film by Louis Malle called _The Lovers_.)

	196?	_Fanny Hill_ is found obscene by the Supreme Judicial
		Court of Massachusetts.  Overturned by the U.S.
		Supreme Court in 1966, in _Memoirs of a Lady of
		Pleasure_ v. _Massachusetts_ [?].

	1963	Proceedings against William S. Burroughs' _Naked
		Lunch_ are begun in Massachusetts on the grounds that
		it may be obscene.  (Won in appeal in the Massachusetts
		Supreme Judicial Court in 1966.)

	1966	Ralph Ginzburg's conviction on charges of distributing
		obscenity through the mails is upheld by the U.S.
		Supreme Court in _Ginzburg_ v. _United States_. 

	1973	In _Miller_ v. _California_, the Supreme Court upholds
		the conviction of a distributor of illustrated books and
		films which were held to violate California obscenity
		law, and partially redefines the conditions under
		which an item can be found to be obscene.

Other prosecutions and decisions since then mostly deal with films,
photographic images, and artistic performances; including the various
attempts to pass anti-pornography legislation; the arrest of Dennis
Barrie, the director of the Cincinnati, Ohio, Contemporary Arts Center
in 1990 for the presentation of Robert Mapplethorpe's "homoerotic"
photographs; and the actions of the U.S. Congress to establish limits
on NEA grantees.

Carl> Thus, I don't think the legal fear is rational.

In _Redrup_ v. _New York_, the U.S. Supreme Court laid out a decision
which implied "that consenting adults in the United States ought to be
constitutionally entitled to read and acquire any publication that
they wished -- including concededly obscene or pornographic ones --
without governmental interference."  (de Grazia 1992: 516)  In
_Stanley_ v. _Georgia_, the Court "held that adults had a constitutional
right to possess, read, or watch concededly obscene books and films in
the privacy of their homes."  (de Grazia 1992: 516)

The Burger Court chose to limit the interpretation of this decision to
the facts, however, and deny that the decision "implied that people had
a constitutional right to exhibit or sell such materials outside the
home, or that anyone had a constitutional right to bring them to his
home, for example, from abroad." (de Grazia 1992: 516)  In July, 1990,
"the Rehnquist Court further narrowed the principle by holding that
the right of Americans to read and watch anything they wished in the
privacy of their homes did not include 'child pornography.'" [In
_Osborne_ v. _Ohio_.]  (de Grazia 1992: 337)

So there's an opening there, but chances are that the current Supreme
Court would not look favorably upon a case asking for sanctioning of a
constitutional right to read "obscene" Usenet News (in one's home,
business, dorm room, school terminal room, etc.).

Carl> I think it is more likely that administrators want to avoid the
Carl> real risk of publicity, even at the expense of academic freedom.

Their attempts to control bad (or potentially bad) publicity over
incidents like this one often result in even more bad publicity from
the response to the attempted suppression/cover-up.  This is often
good publicity for the artists/persons/groups under attack, who can
get a great deal of free publicity.  (E.g.: 2 Live Crew.)

Carl> Finally, although bans may solve publicity problems in the short
Carl> term, in the long term it not only hurts academic freedom, it
Carl> also opens a university up to bad publicity as folks make demand
Carl> after demand for bans of material that they don't want other
Carl> folks see. 

(Which you said.  ;-) )

Source:

de Grazia, Edward

	1992	_Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law Of Obscenity And
		The Assault On Genius_.  New York: Random House.

		(ISBN: 0-394-57611-X, $30.00)

--
"If a man slept by day, he had little time to work.  That was a satisfying 
notion to Escargot." 		-- _The Stone Giant_, James P. Blaylock
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T.S. Davies		tsdavies@mailbox.syr.edu		SHC, DS