Mississippi- [Agape Press]- A group of students at Mississippi State University (MSU) is calling on school officials to condemn a visit by Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine to the campus. Representatives of the porn magazine plan to be at Mississippi State today and tomorrow recruiting coeds for its “Girls of the SEC” pictorial. The magazine will reportedly be holding auditions at an off-campus location in Starkville.

Bunnies meet Bulldogs articleIn a March 9 article titled “Bunnies meet Bulldogs,” the campus newspaper The Reflector reports differing opinions from MSU officials about Playboy’s visit to the area. The report says Dean of Students Mike White has “no concerns” about the auditions — “as long as they are conducting their business away from campus,” he says. But Lynn Crossman, director of women’s studies at MSU, says she is personally “disappointed” in the magazine’s recruitment efforts on college campuses. She says she believes many of MSU’s students “value the same things” as the faculty, and consequently she hopes for a “fairly low turnout” from college students in Starkville.

Crossman’s comments regarding students’ values may very well have some validity, for in a period of 36 hours, nearly 1,200 students signed a petition delivered to University president Robert Foglesong, asking him and other administrators to denounce the Playboy visit. Among those leading the petition effort was Jordan Graham, who says he does not want his school being represented in the October issue of Playboy.

“We as students feel that it’s degrading to our university,” Graham says of the porn purveyor’s visit. “We feel that it’s degrading morally, and that it’s promoting promiscuity — not academics.” In addition, says the MSU student, “we feel that it’s not a true representation of [the principles upon which] Mississippi State was founded ….”

Mississippi State University is the latest stop on the porn magazine’s tour of schools in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The student-led petition calls for MSU officials to take a public stand against Playboy’s efforts to recruit coeds on the Starkville campus. Graham explains that the long-term goal of the petition is simply “for them [Playboy] to leave us alone.”

“Our long-term goal is for the SEC to have no affiliation with Playboy magazine, and Mississippi State University to have no affiliation with Playboy magazine,” he says. “Short-term, we want to raise awareness and we want the city to get on board and just to show [Playboy] that they’re not welcome. We don’t want Playboy representing us as a city, nor do we want Playboy representing us as a university.”

Graham says he and other students who oppose pornography are hoping the Playboy visit will not “negatively affect” Dr. Foglesong’s reputation as MSU president. In a March 13 response to media inquiries about The Reflector’s coverage of the magazine’s two-day visit to Starkville, Foglesong defends the constitutional right of the student newspaper to report on the matter. He also notes that Playboy has “neither sought nor received institutional approval or endorsement of this project, or requested to use any university facilities or resources.”