There is nothing that my fellow Hopkins students and I love more than the MSE library. So when my friends and I were studying on C-Level and noticed a dirty old man looking at pornography on a public computer terminal, we were horrified. Some of you might be offended by the use of such pejorative terms to describe an elderly gentleman, but let me assure you that he fulfilled the criteria of "dirty" and "old" with striking accuracy.
Imagine walking down the stairs and through the C-Level doors and finding someone engaging in hard core, no-hold-barred "academic research." We found it to be absolutely revolting, and tried our best to scare him away by playing the "dirty old man game." Having played many of its variants in middle school, we progressively took turns saying the word "dirty old man" louder and louder, with hopes that this sort of embarrassment would scare him off. Instead he audaciously continued at his "studies."
But I had no idea how widespread this public pornography habit truly is. I would say to a friend, "Hey dude, there is some nasty bum looking at porn in the library." Expecting maybe a gasp of shock or a dropped jaw, I myself was shocked to find that the responses from my friends were so nonchalant and varied:
"Oh, yeah, I've seen him before. You mean that shady white guy who wears the wife-beater and faded jeans?"
"Oh, yeah, I've seen him before. You mean that guy with the red, tucked-in, Hopkins Recreation shirt and Pittsburgh Steelers cap?"
I would respond, "No, I mean that overweight bald man with a tattered yellow jacket." I wondered how it was possible that so many men could find it necessary to utilize a library computer for something so blatantly inappropriate.
These men had no qualms doing something so taboo in such an obvious place. While I might disagree with their decision to look at porn at all, let alone in a library, I feel that they can just as easily view such materials in the privacy of their own homes. In any case, I think many students will find it uncomfortable to study in a library with men who find little social disincentive or embarrassment in blatantly viewing pornographic material. Should our female students have to carry mace and be on the lookout for perverts as they roam the stacks?
The Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio in 1964 discussed public obscenity and the criteria for banning certain obscenities. Justice Potter Stewart concluded that the Constitution protected all obscenity except "hard-core pornography." Stewart wrote, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it." The kind of material these men are viewing in the library are immediately and obviously offensive.
We must take more careful measures to ensure that the library is being used for its purpose in research and study and not for the sexual fancies of these public perverts. For instance, we should also place a block on all pornographic websites in the library, if not that, remove anyone who chooses to look at it.
Some people might claim that the library is a resource that should be open to any and all information, including obscenity, because community standards differ so much on the issue. I don't, however, think we are doing a disservice to academia by restricting pornography. If one really finds this work legitimate and necessary, it can be taken care of somewhere more private; not an open C-Level computer where children could be walking around. I think it is not unreasonable to ask the library to step up its efforts to curtail this inappropriate use of library resources, as it is vital to the communal enjoyment and integrity of one of Hopkins' most important academic facilities.
--Kane Kim is a junior economics major from Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
