Catholic censorship. (Letters).

V-DAY, A GLOBAL Movement to end violence against women and girls, was recently the subject of Catholic censorship efforts, but fortunately such attempts often rebound. Despite a recent campaign by the Cardinal Newman Society--a conservative Catholic group--to prevent productions of The Vagina Monologues being put on at Catholic colleges, all but one of the planned "V-Day" College campaign benefits took place. In fact, in response to news of efforts to ban these benefits, many community members offered off-site space to support the V-Day organizers who were being censored.

Indeed, attempts to ban the productions often created a healthy public and media debate within the community about free speech, the problem of violence against women and the need to address it, and also raised questions about the true goals of the Cardinal Newman Society, which attempted to stop students from doing good works and pressured university administrators and their alumni toward censorship.

At Xavier University in Ohio, the attempted ban led to on-campus rallies and news coverage in the major daily newspapers and on radio and TV stations. In an article in the Cincinnati Post with the headline, "Play rallies campus on academic freedom," the reporter noted, "By Friday, however, the so-called 'V-Day' project also had clearly become about censorship and student freedoms. 'What started as my idea to bring The Vagina Monologues to campus has ended up being something that has united students and faculty alike,' said the play's director, a Xavier junior, Chris Sims." The faculty declared their overwhelming support of the student-run V-Day production.

Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities. In 2003, over 1,000 such benefits took place in the US and around the world, with over 600 of them taking place at colleges and universities.

V-Day itself is a global campaign that envisions and is working to create a world in which violence against women and girls no longer exists. V-Day hopes that the devastating and true stories that are the foundation of The Vagina Monologues will inspire people who see productions of the play to help V-Day create V-World and stop all violence against women and girls.

Through the V-Day College Campaign, which was launched in 1999, thousands of student organizers have raised funds for local groups on their campuses and within their communities. To date, V-Day has raised over $14 million for local community groups who do antiviolence work on the ground every day. Along the way, millions of people have been empowered and educated and have become active in the fight to end violence against women and girls.

We at V-Day are empowered by the volunteer activists--including the thousands of college students all over the world--who work to end violence against women and girls. We invite everyone to join us in our efforts, including the Cardinal Newman Society.

SUSAN CELIA SWAN

V-Day

New York, NY