Pipe Dream is celebrating its 63rd year as Binghamton University’s independent student newspaper. It started as the Colonial News in fall 1946 and has been going strong twice a week ever since. So we are taking a look back into the paper’s archives, at the people and events that have made the news over BU’s past 60 years.
Friday, Sept. 18, 1987
A group of nude protesters carrying signs marched through the University Union to protest Tau Alpha Upsilon’s annual X-rated movie.
According to Brian Heitner, then-president of TAU, the reason the fraternity showed the movie was to provide entertainment on campus at a reasonable price.
As students waited on line to purchase tickets, protesters held signs with messages such as “Demystification” and “Perhaps you really are afraid of sex and nudity” to argue against the film, as it contained a scene of women being exploited through graphic sexual acts.
“A lot of what was shown was submission of women,” Tim Zembek, a former brother of Theta Omega Phi, told Pipe Dream at the time. “They were being slapped in the face and in once scene a woman was being raped.”
TAU did not comment on any of the scenes in the movie.
One student, Dean Sherif, said he found it quite surprising how easy it was to take off his clothes around other protesters, some of whom chose not to remove their clothes.
“The body is O.K., but it is not to be hidden in a dark room,” he said.
However, Heitner felt the protest was unwarranted.
“We don’t have a scarce number of people coming down. It’s not shown any place else on campus and people want to see it.”
During the protest, statements such as “You’ll see better bodies inside,” were heard coming from the TAU bullhorn.
Sherif said that the main purpose of the protest was “to suggest a healthier view of sexuality.”
University Law Enforcement Division officers decided not to break up the demonstration and made no arrests, since the group cooperated with the officers’ requests.
“Tonight I finally understand where you’re coming from,” said ULED Officer Jerry Robinson to the protesters after the demonstration. “As long as they were cooperative, we would not arrest.”
Robinson, who attended the movies for 13 years said that he finally saw the demonstrators from the view point of “a person, not an officer.”