CINCINNATI - Temporary billboards being placed on the University of Cincinnati campus are causing controversy among students.
Twelve billboard-sized photographs of vaginas will be placed outside McMicken Hall Thursday and Friday by the UC LCBTQ Alliance and UC Feminists. The student groups say the "Re-Envisioning the Female Body" project is their way of countering an abortion protest that happened on campus last year. (NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT: To find out more about the project, you can visit their Facebook page .)
The groups say The Genocide Project compared abortion and a woman's choice to the holocaust, Kendall Herold with WCPO reported.
"Our hope for this project is to combat social inequalities and abuses through the use of our vaginas as a form of collective resistance to oppression and to claim our positions as individuals with unique experiences, perceptions, and needs," a post on the group's Facebook page explained.
Each photograph will have a personal story underneath it.
"Our demonstration serves to call attention to the vagina as a site of conflict in medical, legislative, domestic, and representational arenas," the post said on the event's Facebook page.
The UC Students For Life group is trying to put a stop to the display before it goes up, saying the billboards have no purpose other than "shock value."
In a letter given to UC President Santa Ono and Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, an attorney for UC Students For Life writes, "the billboards are a clear violation of Ohio law," according to a press release. The name of the attorney was not released.
The attorney argues the groups are pandering obscenity, which is a felony offense. The attorney states even more laws could be violated if juveniles are exposed to the photos.
Ono said that the exhibit, although controversial, will stay up under First Amendment rights, according to a statement he released Wednesday.
"We are, first and always, an academic community where ideas and images, however complex or controversial, are carefully analyzed and debated," Ono said in the statement. "These intellectual exchanges, while invigorating, can also be challenging and at times polarizing, but at a university like ours they cannot be extinguished, for they are part and parcel of who we are and what we do. Furthermore, as the Ohio Attorney General has reiterated, we are a public institution obligated to protect the First Amendment, even—perhaps especially—when that protection results in disagreement."
Ono added that the university will post signs indicating the provocative nature of the material. To read Ono's full statement, go to http://www.uc.edu/president/communications/03-06-2013_statement-on-student-art.html
The UC LGBTQ Alliances and UC Feminists say they expect students to have concerns and some students to be frustrated. The groups are providing a "safe space" for people to talk about their thoughts with trained volunteers.
As of Thursday morning, the "Re-Envisioning the Female Body" Facebook invite has had more than 600 people who say they will attend and support the message of the billboard. Some comments on the page are in support of the event, while others argue the billboards are nothing more than free pornography.
The billboards will be posted from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday and Friday on McMicken Commons on the UC campus.
Poster Comment:
"Our demonstration serves to call attention to the vagina as a site of conflict in medical, legislative, domestic, and representational arenas," the post said on the event's Facebook page.
Thought I'd repeat that part for anyone else who couldn't remember what any one this nonsense was meant to signify. To be honest, I still don't get it.