University of Iowa - Hawkeye Yearbook (Iowa City, IA)

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1969 scene What about No sooner had the Student Power issue cooled Off than the Daily Iowan revived the obscenity issue by printing a poem from an underground high school paper. The poem had a number of Obscenities the state legislators highly objected to. But. for the most part the year ended in confusion and wonder. Next year remained a big question mark as students weighed the possibilities of what a new University president, a new Code and oppressive measures from the Statehouse could do to the situation of dissent at the University of Iowa. AgraHitti board, put up by a Union Board com- mlttee to create Interest, created more Interest than Union Board had really bargalned for.

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dirty words, student power boil The Code of Student Life had had its day on the pro- test circuiteand by jan. 28 when President Howard R. Bowen announced his resignation, it had been put on a back burner to simmer. Soon new issues began to boil, however. A Student Power Symposium, Feb. 5-7, brought numerous attacks from right wing campus groups which said the Sympo- sium would be a misuse of University funds. Guest speakers for the Symposium were Tom Hayden, a founder of Students for a Democratic Society, and De- Vere Pentotny, an administrator from San F rancisco State College. Hayden concentrated on a theme of Change. Student Power is a means to an end? he said. Now we must de- cide to what end Student Power should be used? State legislators became alarmed that University fa- cilities were used for such radicalismh and that four- letter words were being used freely. The dirty-word controversy was not new at the Uni- versity. Earlier in the semester 3 parent had objected to a graffitti board in the Union Gold Feather Room which had many four-letter words on it. His objection resulted in the removal of the board and a sit-in protest by stu- dents. 25

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rather calm; next year? Granted, Iowa had been spared the vio- lence of a San Francisco State, 21 Berkeley, 3 Columbia and even a Cornell, but a number of questions about human rights and freedoms were brought up. Jerry Sies, who called the Code and his censure a threat,, and a violation of his freedom of dissent and freedom of speechf could not have found more apt terms to describe the aura of dissent of the Uni- versity campus. Next year could bring any number of things, depending upon the new president, the legislature and the students. Students wrote poems, pnns and drew pictures on the boardesome 0f VVthh were obscene. or so one parent thought who objected to the board. A Young Americans for Freedom passed pm Cal- ifornia table grapes at February reglstranon. The grapes had been boycottedonation-wide this year, and YAFhs were protestmg the boycott.