Nudes Convicted

MONTEZUMA, Iowa (LNS)—Eight Grinnell College students have been convicted on charges of “open and indecent exposure.”

The eight, five women and three men, took off their clothes during a talk given by a representative of Playbody magazine at Grinnell College, on Feb. 5. (See Fifth Estate, Feb. 20, 1969).

Poweshiek County District Court Judge R.G. Yoder boxed in the jury with instructions carefully planned to result in a guilty verdict. He told the jury that the only factor to consider was whether or not the students stripped.

He described indecent exposure as “an exhibition of those parts of the human body which instinctive modesty, human decency, or natural self-respect require shall be customarily covered in the presence or view of others.” He asked the jury to ignore the content of the protest—which opposed the magazine’s exploitation of sex.

The jury consisted of eight housewives, a farmer, a druggist, a truck driver and a business owner.

After the trial, the foreman, owner of a sportswear store, said that the jurors were impressed with the students’ arguments, but felt they had no choice because the judge “laced us in so tightly on what was indecent and obscene.”