Playboy Plans to Showcase Ivy League Women

Representatives from Playboy Magazine plan to visit Harvard this April to interview women interested in posing for their upcoming "Women of the Ivy League" pictorial, according to Karen Ring, a publicist for Playboy Enterprises.

The theme pictorial, which was published previously in 1979 and 1986, is scheduled to appear this October in the "back to school" issue.

Like many other prominent companies recruiting on campus, Playboy will run advertisements in The Crimson on March 13 and April 17.

The ads will call for women who are interested in posing nude to contact Playboy, Ring said.

"It's always a positive experience for the girls; they never need to feel embarrassed because the pictures are so well done and Playboy is done in such good taste," Ring said.

"Most girls do it for fun because their fathers and their brothers read Playboy," Ring added.

Also to be featured in the pictorial, according to Ring, are women from other Ivy League schools, including Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia and Cornell.

Ring said the pictorial on Ivy League women has been popular with Playboy's readers in the past.

"The readers love it," Ring said. "It usually gets a lot of attention from the press."

Student leaders of campus women's groups say they are not opposed to the pictorial in principle.

"I wouldn't dedicate a lot of political energy to opposing an arrangement between independent individuals," Radcliffe Union of Students Co--president Rachel H. Garlin '96 said. "But it's hard to comment on something before the fact."

Rebecca M. Boggs '95, co--president of Students for Equality Feminism, said those who believe Playboy is offensive should simply avoid the magazine.

"I am a free speech, free market feminist," Boggs said. "I have absolutely no problem with it. If you think it's offensive, don't buy it, don't pose."

Renowned attorney and Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz said the Playboy pictorial should not be a controversial issue.

"Anyone who says women are being forced to do this is being patronizing and sexist," said Dershowitz, who writes a column for Penthouse magazine and recently bought a subscription to that publication for Widener Library.

"There should be no University involvement," Dershowitz said.

"The students are within their First Amendment rights," Dershowitz added.

"Playboy is within its First Amendment rights. It's purely an exercise in free will," he said.

One campus figure, however, said Playboy should not come to Harvard for its co--eds.

"My own personal opinion is that it would be unfortunate if people cooperate with a magazine that tends to demean women," Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 said.