This week’s special election, which could determine whether or not students will overturn the A.S. Council’s ban on sexual nudity on Student-Run Television, represents oversimplification of a complex issue, according to acting Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Life Gary R. Ratcliff.
John Muir College alumnus Steve York, left, beats an effigy of acting Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Life Gary R. Ratcliff with a dildo during a protest against administrative policies.
But what is simple enough, he said, is the one and only administrative demand for the return of SRTV:
“We don’t want to see ‘graphical depictions of sexual nudity,’” he said. “We won’t part from that, and we want to see that in the charter.”
That requirement is controversial because SRTV will not agree to its inclusion in a new station charter, according to station co-Manager Andrew Tess. Although he is currently negotiating terms of a rewritten charter with a newly appointed SRTV task force, Tess said that his mentality has changed since the release of 544 pages of e-mails documenting administrators’ internal conversations about the station.
“Those e-mails confirmed my suspicions about what the administration was thinking,” he said. “They were trying to get the A.S. to do the dirty work for them while they were scrambling to find out what exactly was going on with SRTV.”
In early October, the A.S. Council rejected an amendment that would have banned sexual nudity on the station. Senators with no experience with John Muir College alumnus Steve York and his pornography, which dates back to last spring, made the decision, Ratcliff said. Following a pornographic airing by York in mid-October, the council passed a bill that implemented a ban on graphic nudity on Oct. 26.
Despite Tess’ accusations, the university had no part in the matter, Ratcliff said.
“When Steve York aired his first porno of the year, I think that it opened the council’s eyes,” he said. “York actually gave the council reason to pass the ban by airing his material.”
While Ratcliff links York to SRTV’s eventual ills, including a shutdown by the A.S. Council on Nov. 4, administrators were plotting against the station even before the A.S. Council shut it down, Tess said.
Tess referred to e-mails written by Ratcliff to Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Joseph W. Watson, which mentioned different scenarios for the station.
In the Oct. 6 e-mail, Ratcliff suggested first creating a program review board for the station that “reviews program proposals to make sure they comply with their current rules and regulations.” He also considered giving the university control of the station if the initial plan failed, justified because the administration “can say we gave students a chance to work [it] out.”
The e-mails were taken out of context and were just contingencies that are made in any organization, Ratcliff said.
However, those contingencies were more like schemes, according to Tess, and are completely opposite to his own goals. For instance, the addition of a program review board is out of the question, said Tess, who believes the process would be “prior review” and illegal under state law.
In addition, Ratcliff’s requirement to ban all instances of “graphical depictions of sexual nudity” is too expansive, Tess said.
“It’s just there to ease people’s minds, but will have no meaning,” he said. “The statement is so broad that it will do nothing.”
The loopholes in Ratcliff’s required provision were highlighted in e-mails in which administrators questioned the legality of York’s pornographic broadcasts, according to Tess.
“Even if they covered the organs, wouldn’t the video still violate the charter if they had sex during the program?” A.S. Adviser Lauren Weiner stated in a Oct. 28 e-mail to Ratcliff.
But the prospect of excluding the nudity provision, and allowing more York-like broadcasts, is too dangerous to consider, Ratcliff said. In the end, the university owns Triton Cable, which broadcasts the SRTV signal, so it may do with the station as it pleases.
“Triton Cable is a university resource that will not be used for pornography,” Ratcliff said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Tess matches Ratcliff’s unyielding approach with one of his own.
“The administration is not the invincible block that everyone makes [it] out to be,” he said. “Where do we go from here? I don’t know, but there are certain things that SRTV isn’t willing to give up either, and administrators need to take those to heart.”
Although he is concentrating on reworking the station charter, Tess said he is actively seeking legal counsel as his own contingency plan.
