Stripping It Down to Those Fine Questions of Values

I went over to Chapman College Tuesday to question some values.

That was the name of the campus forum, “A Question of Values.”

What they were talking about in Hashinger Hall was the moral dilemma of striptease dancing.

That’s right. This is a liberal arts college.

Last month, two guys of Sigma Phi Epsilon threw a party for their fellow Sig Eps at their off-campus apartment. We’re not talking “Animal House” here. They don’t have frat houses at Chapman College, a cozy little place with 2,200 students.

Had the guys stuck to the usual activity of drinking and throwing up, you would not be reading about it here. But they also hired a woman stripper and, more important, somebody snitched.

The arbiters of student morality at Chapman were not pleased. After initially placing the fraternity on suspension for a year and probation for another, the school then decided to let the students’ Greek council rule on what to do. The council has apparently ruled, but school officials haven’t yet been told what the council decided.

So that’s where they were Tuesday at Chapman, waiting this thing out.

But seeing as how the college describes itself as a “church-related . . . caring, value-centered institution,” college officials couldn’t let themselves off the hook that easily.

First, they had to experience some liberal college guilt. What were the larger issues here? Where did they go wrong?

After a memo posing those questions circulated among faculty and administrators, it was decided that an airing of the group Angst would be in order.

That was how moderator Earl Babbie, the chairman of the social sciences division, found himself in front of a lecture hall of 150 people late Tuesday morning announcing: “I don’t have a point of view. I don’t have an agenda.”

What he was saying, in other words, was that the assembled students and faculty should feel free to vent their feelings about what he called “an issue of morality.” Maybe, he said, it was the American attitude toward nudity that they wanted to discuss, or perhaps sexism and exploitation.

No holds barred, was the message. Just feel good about yourself.

OK, first question from the floor. “Was there any direct frontal nudity?” a guy wanted to know.

Necks craned toward the Sig Eps, demonstrating an impressive display of unity by occupying most of the first two rows of seats. Most of them even wore suits for the occasion (although at least two of them did bring their skateboards). In keeping with the dignity of the moment, I did not note any jabbing of elbows.

“Come on, guys,” Babbie offered.

But it was no go. The brotherhood was revealing no secrets.

So things went on from there, at first a bit timidly, but by the end of the hourlong forum, so many students were waving their arms in the air that Babbie had to limit the questions to those who weren’t able to get a word in edgewise. Just a handful of students appeared to side with the administration’s initial hard line.

One of the Sig Eps weighed in with this: “If it had been a sorority that had had a male stripper, I honestly don’t think this would have happened.”

Another brother added: “Since the beginning of America, women have played a secondary role. . . . Now, today, it’s great that they are equal. . . . Are we not just mature enough to enjoy this?”

But, by far, the most eloquent rebuttals--and they largely were rebuttals--to the administration decision to chastise the Sig Eps came from those outside the fraternity, men and women.

“Is the college responsible for all our values?” one young man asked. “Should Chapman College interfere with my moral choices?”

Another male student added, “The big issue is whether the school has the right to interfere with what students do on their own time, in their own bedroom.”

By this time, as you can see, inhibitions had dropped considerably.

One woman confessed that her sorority had actually hired a female stripper as a present to another fraternity. Several students said that the stripper issue was just a rehash of last year’s nudity brouhaha--when the college barred a play because it contained nudity--and signified a tightening of the screws on individual freedom at Chapman.

But then somebody suggested that maybe the faculty or administrators in the audience should have a say. So Chapman’s new president, Allen Koenig, stood up.

Well, I’m here to report that Koenig appears to be a cool guy, at least in the eyes of most students.

Not only did he say that he would have allowed the nudity center stage if he had been here earlier (applause, applause), but he added that he wasn’t even considering a ban on “Horny,” a rather smutty journal produced by Chapman graduate students (applause and hoots).

He got off the hook on the stripper issue by muttering something about how he might have to have the final say later on.

So the therapy seemed to work. Students walked out with smiles on their faces. They told Babbie they would love to do it again.

And as for the larger issue of what the real message behind strippers and college boys is, well . . . a task force is forming.