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MILWAUKEE - The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is launching a task force on violence against women after a student newspaper ran a photo essay depicting an editor's sexual fantasy of being raped, sparking outrage across campus.
But while the administration disapproves of the UWM Post's decision to run the essay, it cannot take any action against the weekly paper because it receives no funding from the university, only free office space, said UWM Provost Rita Cheng.
"They see themselves as an independent newspaper, and we treat them as such," Cheng said last week. "This is a very sensitive issue of independence and freedom of speech."
The photo essay, which was published Nov. 23, shows Sara DeKeuster, the publication's photo editor and a senior at the time, being attacked in a parking garage. In the staged scenes, which are titled "Bedtime stories," DeKeuster is slammed against a car by a man posing as a stranger and forced into what photo captions describes as "unexpected intercourse" that leads to her feeling "guilty and rejoiced."
Diego Costa, a graduate student who is the Post's arts and entertainment editor, said in a note to readers that he and DeKeuster conceptualized the essay "in order to explore the age-old repressed female sexuality in its attempt to strip itself of social and feminist constraints." In a follow-up article, Costa, who took the photos, said the work was an "art piece" that expressed DeKeuster's "guilt-ridden sexual desire of getting raped."
But the explanations haven't gone over well with many students and university officials.
The essay comes one year after a UWM student was dragged into bushes near campus and attacked by five classmates, dressed in black-and-white makeup, who later told police that it was just a prank. Critics said the essay could be seen as an endorsement of rape and that, art or not art, it did not belong in a student newspaper. Students have flooded the paper with angry letters, and some have unsuccessfully urged local businesses to pull advertising.
The administration cannot censor or take other action against the Post because the newspaper relies entirely on advertising, Cheng said. Nevertheless, administrators have voiced concerns about the photo essay to the newspaper's editors. And Cheng is seizing the opportunity to form a task force that will examine the climate for women on campus - an initiative that has been discussed for several years but has yet to get off the ground.
"Particularly with this controversy, there was concern about whether women feel comfortable," Cheng said.
DeKeuster, who graduated last month with a degree in fine art photography, said the essay was originally done for a class. Her aim, she said, was to use self-portrait film stills as a way of "liberating my sexuality." She said Costa, a graduate student of film who serves as a teaching assistant, took the photos and came up with the captions.
Costa said he decided to run the essay in the Post because he wanted to do something that would set it apart from other newspapers. He said he and DeKeuster saw it as a good way to use the "pages of a newspaper for questioning the establishment."
They had the support of other editors at the paper, even though some disliked the essay, said Matt Bellehumeur, the Post's editor in chief.
But when "Bedtime stories" came out, many students and university officials were upset. Photocopies of the essay - with "Post Advocates Rape" written on them - were posted all over the student union. Stickers that said "How to Rape" were stuck on stacks of the newspaper, Bellehumeur said.
"All my friends were absolutely appalled," said senior Amy Phipps, a member of the College Feminists, who said she had nothing to do with the photocopies or stickers.
"A lot of times when women are raped or harassed, people use the defense that she wanted it. This piece can be seen as validation of that and as a mockery of women who have been assaulted."
Catherine Seasholes, director of the university's Women's Resource Center, said the center, campus police and the university health center all fielded questions from students who were offended, and, in some cases, afraid of the essay.
"The concerns were - was this something that actually happened? Were the images real? Was this a parking garage on campus?" Seasholes said. "Apparently not. But a lot of people still felt like it reflected a lack of consciousness and sensitivity that a substantial number of women have been sexually assaulted."
It wasn't just female students and staff who were offended. Graduate student Ben Butz said he could understand if the photos were hung in an art gallery. But he was upset that they were printed in the Post, which he said reaches students who would not have chosen to see the images.
Critics were even more upset when the Post ran a follow-up story Dec. 7 about the angry reaction on campus, in which Costa dismissed it as "typical of people whose understanding of art is so superficial" - a sentiment that he and DeKeuster maintain today.
After the follow-up story, the editors of the Post met with Seasholes; leaders of the Student Association; James Hill, who is interim vice chancellor for student affairs; and other officials, Bellehumeur said.
The newspaper had already run many angry letters to the editor and a full-page ad citing rape statistics that was taken out by the Student Association at half price. But the people who attended the meeting believed that more communication was needed, Seasholes said. Some students had begun contacting advertisers to persuade them to pull their ads. Talk of boycotting the free paper was under way.
"There wasn't a single message," Seasholes said of the meeting with the editors. "I was there to help them understand that the impact had been much broader than had been brought to their attention. They say they can print whatever they want. But we say you also have to live up to responsibility."
Bellehumeur told Seasholes and others at the meeting that the Post was planning to donate $800 to a local shelter for battered women. He said in an interview this week that if he had to make the decision again, he would not publish "Bedtime stories." Bellehumeur has decided not to print two follow-up photo essays by DeKeuster that were scheduled to appear.
Cheng said the results of the meeting, and the creation of the task force, are enough to satisfy the administration.
But Phipps would like to see more done. The administration, she said, should strip the UWM Post of its free office space and kick it off campus.
Costa, meanwhile, said he will strive to publish "other things in the future that will question the order of things."
"Art doesn't belong to the elitist spaces of East Coast art museums," Costa said. "It belongs everywhere, including a Wisconsin campus newspaper."
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(c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
