Computer Lab Students Test Ban on Nudity--Briefly

Nudity made a brief comeback at UC Berkeley this week when a small computer lab declared clothing optional.

But university officials, who wrote a dress code demanding dress after the exploits of the Naked Guy earlier this year, quickly pulled the plug on the buff computer buffs.

“I told them to put their clothes back on,” said David Farrell, assistant librarian at Moffitt Library, where the computer center is housed.

The campus nudity ban was challenged Monday when about five people at the computer lab took it all, or most of it, off.

“We feel that everyone would feel safer and more comfortable and have greater self-esteem if we were letting everyone see us as we really are,” said Bill Urban, the 24-year-old manager of the lab, which rents computers and gives free technical advice to students.

Robert Ramacciotti, a senior who witnessed the unveiling, said students didn’t know what to think.

“Some people were laughing and some people were in shock. One guy had an Elvis shirt on and that was about it,” he said.

Urban said he knew about the dress code, imposed after Andrew Martinez, a.k.a. the Naked Guy, got national exposure for his bare antics. But Urban thought his lab, a subcontractor to the university, would be exempt from the rules.

Not so, said Farrell, who didn’t appear too ruffled by the episode.

“I guess this is how we know it’s spring,” he said.