University Bookstore pulls 'Women of UW' calendar

Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports:

The University Book Store has pulled a "Women of UW" calendar from its shelves, although the students who published the calendar are hoping to get it back into the store -- or at least recoup some of their production costs.


The students put together the calendar as part of a business course that required them to develop a company, create a product or service and sell it for profit. The calendar features 13 UW students posing in bikinis, shorts or skirts. There's also brief biographical information on each woman. It has also been sold at the Dawg Den in the University District.

Though the calendar was sold in the University Book Store earlier this month, it was taken off shelves last week, before the Seattle P-I published a story about it. The chief executive of the bookstore declined Tuesday to comment on the calendar's removal.

Zachary Meissner, a member of the student group, said the bookstore asked them to take back the unsold calendars -- about 250 in all. Although the students would like the bookstore to keep them on the shelves, they are willing to take the calendars back for a fee that would help cover the costs of producing them, Meissner said.

The students and the bookstore have a purchase contract, he said, and students would like it to be honored.

"The key lesson that I learned over and over in this class is that you have to get it in writing," he said.

UW Business School Dean James Jiambalvo said a few people from outside the business school have complained that the calendar objectified women. An associate dean will be meeting with the course instructor to discuss the group's project.

At the forefront of censorship:the university "left".