Is Iona College Commiting Copyright Infringement?

For anyone who read The Daily Item on Tues., 9/29/98, and the Gannet-Suburban Newspaper's on Wed. 9/30/98, what do you think of all of this? If anyone is not aware of these two pieces, the following headlines appeared: "Iona Officials purge literary magazine of 'semisexual' poetry" by Staff Writer, Caren Halbfinger; and "Iona draws line between political, sexual speech" by Staff Writer, Josh Margolin, (Front Page of both editions).

To make a long story short, it appears according to the 9/29 story by Ms. Halbinger, "Iona College has distributed a sanitized version of its student literary magazine four months after administrators seized 380 copies of the original because it included expletives and sexually explicit language."

It also seems according to the above article that "The college censored The Cornelian because of two poems with four-letter words and one with a "semisexually explicit passage," said Mark Arduino, public relations director at the New Rochelle college. In the revised edition, administrators changed the offending word in one of the poems, which had won a Honors Program contest, Arguino said, without permission of the student writer and ommitted the other two poems."

According to the President of the College, Brother James A. Liguori,
"The whole issue was poorly written to begin with. There were two
pieces of material that were totally inappropriate for Iona College... We're not in business to publish something that's offensive to the majority of people who might have good taste." However, according to the above article, Brother Liguori said he consulted with a college attorney to be sure Iona had the right to confiscate the magazines."

In the article published in the 9/30 edition, Josh Margolin said that
"a Puritanical streak rises in Iona College administrators when it comes
to certain aspects of free speech.

Administrators have stood by the First Amendment to let Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver speak on campus. They refused to kill profane criticism of a former trustee in the student newspaper. But when it comes to sext, they have branded student literary efforts of The Cornelian student magazine with a big scarlet "A". It happened this year and it happened in 1969. Almost 30 years ago in the winter of 1969, The Cornelian appeared throughout the campus suporting a nude woman on the cover and explicit sexual content on its pages. The administration confiscated the magazine. Later that year, the administration stuck by the First Admendment in the face of an uproar over a campus speach given by Black Panther leader, Eldridge Cleaver." It seems that "factions on the Board of Trustees and in the community wanted Iona to cancel the Cleaver appearance, but the college refused."

Anyway, I include the aforementioned information so that anyone who wants to respond will have at least some of the information to make an informed decision and if they are so inclined, would look up both articles to see what each article included. I am a person who is open-minded who belives everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe, but in my opinion, they have no right to push their ideas onto others in the way they (Iona College) appears/appeared to be doing. The fact that they confiscated The Cornelian Literary Magazine, changed a word in a student-writer's poem and removed two other poems because they thought others might find it offensive, is beyond belief. Would you like that to happen to you? I don't think so, but I know that I wouldn't. I also believe that it takes two to tango and I believe that Brother Liguori and the Administration of Iona College have a right to their opinions and beliefs and we only read what has been reported in the aforementioned newspaper articles. I also think that because Iona College is a Catholic College in New Rochelle, NY, run by the Brothers makess thiis an understandable issue for them. Perhaps, there could have been another way of handling this. Perhaps, this may have been the reason why this story has appeared on the Front Pages of the 9/29/98 and 9/30/98, editions of The Daily Item and the Gannett Surburban Newspapers. What do you all think of all of this? Do you think that the whole thing has been blown out of proportion? I am extremely interested in this aspect of copyright law and infringement. In fact, it brings back thoughts of Sen. Jessie Helms shutting down of the Maplethorpe Exhibit because it was being funded by the National Endowment For The Arts and he was offended by its content.

Linda Powell
<lpowell[_at_]bestweb.net> Received on Wed Sep 30 1998 - 14:28:41 GMT