Controversy not exclusive to PSU

The only thing Suzanne Hendrich did was recommend for better health, people should eat less red meat.

The professor of family and consumer sciences at Iowa State University had no idea her statement in 1988 would put that university through the meat grinder.

The chair of the senate agricultural committee was furious about the recommendation, said Carol Bradley, director of government relations.

"He was outraged that a land grant institution would say something against the livestock industry," she said. "The (university) president said this is an academic freedom issue."

Although no one in the state legislature threatened to withhold state funding, Hendrich and several administrators went to talk to the senator and explain the research findings.

But that university is not the only one to have trouble with legislators. Penn State recently had its own brush with an angry legislator. State Rep. John Lawless, R-Montgomery, threatened to withhold $281 million in state funding if a controversial piece of artwork remained on display at the University's Zoller Gallery. Only 16.8 percent of the University's total operating budget comes from the state.

The artwork in question, entitled 25 Years of Virginity: A Self Portrait, is a quilt covered with 25 pairs of women's underwear, each with a cross stitched onto the crotch.

This is the second time in the last year that the artist, Christine Enedy (senior-visual arts), has found her artwork under attack. In December, she voluntarily removed a sculpture from an outdoor display after complaints from the Catholic community at the University. The sculpture was a three-dimensional grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary emerging from a bloody vagina.

The University of Illinois at Chicago experienced a similar problem in 1983 when many people felt an exhibit of 40 paintings in a gallery in the student union building was anti-Catholic. Some members of the Catholic community did not have a problem with many of the paintings. A few depicted scenes such as priests beheading men, a bishop crushing people underfoot and Jesus Christ with the head of a pig.

Although it was discussed in the Illinois legislature, no one threatened to withhold state funds as did Rep. Lawless.

"We got lots of calls and letters to the editor in local papers," said Dave Weymiller, university spokesman. "I don't think this became an issue outside of Chicago. There was no permanent fallout from it, beside we should screen exhibits a little more carefully."

One school where state funding could have been affected by controversy on campus was at the University of Iowa.

The English department publishes a literary magazine called the Iowa Review with contributions from faculty and students as well as people outside the university. An issue in 1994 contained several controversial fiction stories.

Two pieces stood out because of their titles, said David Hamilton, the magazine's editor.

One was called The Burial of Count Orgasm -- a play on the title of the famous painting by El Greco called the Burial of Count Orgaz. The other was called "S&M," which described a woman masturbating in the bathroom and reaching orgasm.

After reading the stories, 15 Iowa legislators sent a letter to the university's Board of Regents and university administrators. They wrote that the university endorsing such material would affect how the representatives viewed giving state funding to the University of Iowa.

"Of the 30 stories, about four had explicit sexual content," Hamilton said. "It was hardly a theme for the issues. Some legislator came across this issue. They were outraged and said we were printing pornography . . . It never went anywhere, but it kicked up a firestorm."

When legislators voted on the university's budget, it was approved without anyone mentioning the magazine.

Controversial art and literature can be a problem for universities across the country, said Ted Yanecek, director of the Office of State Relations at the University of Iowa.

"Universities across the country have this problem," he said. "We can be a controversial place, and things happen on campus that some people might find objectionable.

"It comes with the territory of higher education."