Nude students rebel

This story is too funny.

Now Robert Graves, hired this year as Bennington's dean of students, has embarked on a crusade against public nudity -- one that has run afoul of the school's free-spirited students.

Students have long enjoyed an informal policy allowing them to go naked on campus. Whether it was as a topless sunbather lounging on the lawn or students running naked at an annual bonfire party, college officials turned a blind eye.

But when a student strolled around campus naked this summer during an orientation session when parents were visiting campus, the new dean reprimanded him.

More than 200 students, a few of them naked, marched across campus in October to protest against what they saw as a crackdown by the administration on freedom of expression. While the impending onset of the New England winter has put a temporary pause to the dispute, students are preparing for a springtime assault.

I can imagine.

It's easy to see why the students feel compelled to walk around bare-assed naked when it's warm. The winter is long there and they don't probably get to show off much flesh at all. So they over-compensate a little in summer.

I have the opposite inclination myself. Since it gets so hot here in the summer that you want to take your skin off, much less your clothes, it's nice to wear turtlenecks and other banes of existence for those who appreciate little flashes of skin.