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Three four-letter words used in the first
issue of the new Veritas, all of which appear
in the new American Heritage Dictionary as
part of common American speech, were dubbed
"obscene" as part of common Elon College speech
by the Honor Court Wednesday, March 18, 19?0,
The court, consisting of the students Petfe
Fleming, Marvin Morgan, and Pat Jones, and
Professors Morgan, Smith (Kent), and Brown
ruled it "jingentlemanly" at Elon College to
use the four letter words synonymous with
fornicate, defecate, and urinate.
The farcical proceeding lasted approximatley
four hours. Farcical because the four were
charged with "ungentlemanly conduct, an offense
committed against the Elon College student
body",, and the student body had nothing to
say aboxtt the trial (whether or not they were
offended). Furthermore, the four were tried
by "justices" not elected by this student
body but appointed by the presidents of S.G.A,
and of Elon College.
There are no judicial, procedural standards
adhered to in the Elon Honor Court. There is,
however, something of an ordfer of events. The
defense first has the right to question any of
the "justices" if the defense believes any are
pEegiidiced in the case. But since the court
itself decides whether or not it is prejudiced
it is the same as asking people if they are
bigots, or racists, which is a futile exercise
and the defense bypassed this opportunityo
The prosecution then presents its case. In
this instanc® the prosecution did not present
a case at all, but read legal definitions of.-.
obscenity from law dictionaries; one dated
1904, and two in the 1950's(later brought out
by the defense)o This, the prosecution(Mark
Jordan) said, provided groundwork and then
letters from a newspaper and from Dr. Robert
Gc Blake both condemning not only the use of
four letter words in Veritas, but the content
and the staff members as well, were read.
As only parts of these legal definitions were
read, the prosecuting part, the defense request
ed that they be read in their entirety. There
was one comical highlight whiln the prosecuticn
had the floor. When "defecation", the accept
able version of its four-letter synonymn
came up in one of the legal dictionaries,
Mark Jlordan didn't seem to know how to pro
nounce ito "Defection", he said, "defect"^
etc., until he was corrected by a "justice,"
The prosecution then rested its "case."
The defense asked for the dates of Jordan's
books to be fecited. Then Prof, Smith read
letters from some of the English facility, all
of them attesting to the literary long stand
ing of the words in question. One letter
emphasized the elusiveness of the term
"’.mgentlemanly", While these very words
enjoyed campus wide usage, this term was
found by the author to 'e inapplicable to
those who use them. Next, the conter.porary
federal and state court rulings on otscenity
as well as the modern connotations of the
term "obscene" were outlined, Michael Smith
pointed out that since there were none btiit
legal definitions of the word, .had to be
incorporated as the only sound evidence*
The modern precedent in court is that three
tests must be met before obscenity can be
determined,These are«(a) the dominant theme
of the material, taken as a whole, must
appeal to the prurient interests of the reader
(b) the material must be patently offensive
within contemporary community standards, and
(c) the material must be utterly without
redeeming social importance. Thus words in
themselves cannot be , in any legal circum
stances at least, considered obscene and
all legal concepts of the word are sex-
oriented.
Then an extensive though not all-irvclusive .
list of books containing four-letter words
in the library, campus shop, and used in
required and unrequired courses as assigned
reading was read by Prof.' Smith, Citing that
there was no precedent to observe at Elon as
there had been no previous prosecuticn for the
alleged use of "obscene words", pointing out
that the four had already been punished with
sus-oension and letters to parents, and
summarizing all of the defense evidence, Prof.
Smith rested his case,
Deanof the College C. Fletcher Moore then
testified for the prosecution. He said that
the Colle^je had withdrawn financial support
from Colonnades last year in a similar
situation, vvhen Prof, SMith asked Moore
what words
cortf. f* a.