WILLIAMSBURG, VA —General Assembly Delegate Brenda Pogge (R-York) may not have gotten her way when she demanded that the February 4th College of William & Mary performance of the traveling Sex Workers Art Show be cancelled on obscenity grounds – but she’s surely grinning from ear to ear now. After all, the man who agreed to allow the “embarrassment to our community” has resigned. Prior to the event, Pogge told local news media that she felt the performance “drags down the reputation, the legacy, the decorum, and the dignity” of the college. The cabaret features past and present sex workers– who rang from erotica writers to strippers to prostitutes – each sharing their personal story or socio-artistic message via what the group calls “a blend of spoken word, music, burlesque, and multimedia performance art” in order to “dispel the myth that they are anything short of artists, innovators, and geniuses.”
Then-college president Gene Nichol disagreed, insisting that allowing students and residents the rare opportunity to learn more about the diverse and controversial social group was well within both the rights of the student body and the tradition of educational excellence associated with the institution.
Unfortunately for Nichol and, some might say, academic freedom, the Board of Visitors for the college did not agree. On Tuesday, Nichol resigned from his position of college president after learning on the previous Sunday that his contract had not been renewed.
Both conservative and liberal bloggers conjecture that although Nichol’s refusal to ban the return of the Sex Workers’ Art Show to the college was certainly involved in the board’s decision, the president had engaged in other behavior that had run afoul of Board sensibilities; including the removal of the Wren Chapel cross, support for the university’s Gateway Program and to faculty diversity. Hired as president in 2005, his tenure was the shortest in the school’s history since the Civil War. He had previously acted as dean of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s law school. It is believed that Nichol plans to return to law school.
Although thousands of students are said to have protested Nichol’s resignation, conservative bloggers associated with Duke University in Durham, NC – which somehow survived a February 3rd performance of the Sex Workers’ Art Show — likely applaud the move.
Students for an Ethical Duke announced to the media that the group’s president, Ken Larrey, had not only courageously attended the art show but shot footage while there. Ironically, the group condemns Nichol for violating a no-stripper-on-campus policy while simultaneously boasting of footage clearly shot in violation of the non-photo/non-film agreement reached by the performance group and authorities. In an attempt to demonstrate “the vulgarity of the event, but also the complete lack of anything of redeeming value,” Duke Students for an Ethical Duke apparently want to make sure that as many people as possible can be exposed to precisely that.
