U. Museum Web site may violate fed. law

Civil Liberties Union questions photo of nude Aphrodite statue The University Museum of archeology and Anthropology could be violating federal law by displaying a photo of a nude statue on its World Wide Web homepage. The controversial picture is of a statue of the nude torso of Aphrodite dating from 150 to 100 B.C. The issue came into question during the continuing suit by the American Civil Liberties Union's testing the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act governing Internet standards. President Clinton signed the act into law in March, and several groups immediately sued the Justice Department to overturn some of its provisions. The museum was mentioned in a question posed to a Justice Department witness who determined that a nude image of the museum's on-line site would be subject to a blocking system preventing minors from accessing the site. The three judges questioned Dan Olsen, the Justice Department's final witness in the case of ACLU v. Reno, which questions the new laws making it illegal to display "indecent" material of Internet sites which are accessible to minors. Olsen, a computer scientist at Brigham Young University, is the engineer of a plan that would tag pornographic sites and electronically block their transmission to minors. Chief Judge Delores Sloviter then posed the follwing scenario to Olsen: What if the University Museum posted the image of a nude statue in its on-line collection? You might have to pre-screen or block to be safe? Is that part of your scheme?" Sloviter asked. "Yes," Olsen replied. Pam Kosty, a public relations officer for the museum, said she is unsure whether Judge Sloviter was aware when she posed the question that the museum's homepage does indeed feature a picture of the nude Aphrodite statue, under the area devoted to exhibits from the Greek period. Museum officials said the museum's mention at the trial surprised them. Kosty explained that the museum was unaware of what had transpired at the trial until she was contacted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, which ran a story on the trial, to ask whether the museum had a statue on the Internet that fit the judge's description. Kosty said museum officials disagree with the suggestion that the statue is indecent. "We consider such material art and we consider it history," Kosty said. "We would be amazed if anyone considered it indecent." Although the statue itself was not mentioned specifically as indecent, Kosty said the possibility of it being unfit for minors under the law brings up the question of the law's broad nature and who will be interpreting continuing community standards. The statue currently resides on the third floor of the museum and is seen by 40,000 school children a year, according to museum estimates. Joseph Farrell, undergraduate chairperson of the Classical Studies Department, said he feels the possibility of the being considered pornographic is "ridiculous." "The fact that the Chronicle put it on its cover without raising an eyebrow shows that it is suitable for display," Farrell said. Farrell also explained that from an artistic point of view the statue actually has a rather chaste expression to it.