I am forwarding (with author's permission) a message sent to me off the
list by John A. Labadie ([log in to unmask]):

(snip) Speaking of teaching, i have a brief story to relate RE: nudity
>and education.
>
>A few years ago while completing my doctoral research, i was working
>as a curriculum consultant for a large consolidated rural school
>district.  In area and miles of bus routing the second largest in the
>state and relatively modern with respect to most of the physical
>infrastructure and also financially solvent.
>
>At one point i was asked to advise the Asst. Supt. of Curriculum &
>Instruction about "some up to date visual resources" and related
>materials that might support art education, particularly art history,
>at the level of grades 4-12.  Some of the 35mm slides i suggested
>were to introduce the art and culture of Precolumbian North America.
>
>A specific slide set had been purchased by me from the National Park
>Service site at the Cahokia mound in East St. Louis.  In a few of the
>slides were figures in the dioramas which depict how an 11th (i
>think) century AD village would have appeared.  Apparently the
>diarama depicted summer fashions of the times.  To make a long (and
>sad) story shorter, the rabbit skins and woven loin cloths shown on
>the figures were deemed unacceptable.  The slide set from Cahokia was
>rejected from the pool to be reviewed.  Same was true of the Sistine
>Chapel, and works by Raphael, Botticelli and other artists from many
>other cultures.
>
>In all cases nudity was considered to be inappropriate to public
>education in the visual arts.  I resigned my position with that
>system shortly after this incident.  What's even more sad it that, in
>this case described here, nothing was learned by those whose views
>were so rigid as to deny students access to world art history.
>
>Keep the faith.
>
>Regards, John
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>   Dr. John Antoine Labadie
>   Assistant Professor of Art
>   Pembroke State University of the Universities of North Carolina
>
>   PO Box #5049/ Locklear Hall              Phone: 910.521.6618
>   Pembroke, NC 28372-1510                    Fax: 910.521.6162
>
>
>   "Art is the difference between seeing and just identifying."
>
>                                           Jean Mary Norman