NORTHRIDGE : CSUN Drops Ban on 3 Adult Magazines

By JOHN CHANDLER

Dec. 9, 1994 12 AM PT

In a victory for campus free-speech advocates, three adult magazines, including Playboy, will soon be back on racks at the Cal State Northridge bookstore, officials announced Thursday.

“On a college campus, we have a little different obligation than the corner store would have. The First Amendment comes into play,” said Don Queen, head of the entity that runs the retail outlets on campus. But he added, “I didn’t even think about the First Amendment originally.”

A former store manager discontinued carrying Playboy, Playgirl and Penthouse last spring, Queen said, citing problems with theft and customers who left them strewn throughout the store. Queen said he was aware of the decision to drop the magazines last spring and considered it a routine business matter. He changed his mind after censorship concerns were raised last week.

“I think this is really wonderful. Nobody wanted to go through a great big hassle all over again,” said CSUN librarian Virginia Elwood, one of two university workers who raised concerns over the issue and met with Queen last Friday.

Elwood was active in a similar and highly publicized campus fight in 1984 to restore the same magazines that had been pulled from the shelves.

Feminists on campus late that year persuaded the bookstore’s governing board to ban sexually explicit magazines, drawing nationwide attention. But the board shortly thereafter repealed the decision after a massive protest by students and faculty members citing free speech issues.

This time, the decision to drop the magazines was based solely on problems they caused, not censorship, said Queen.

A spokeswoman for Playboy, which has circulation of 3.4 million in the United States, applauded the decision. “Academic freedom has been under attack throughout the country. This is an important move in the right direction,” said Terri Tomcisin, Playboy’s director of corporate communications.

The latest removal of the magazines was first reported Monday in the Matador Reporter, a CSUN student newspaper.