Pinup Calendar Removal from University-Owned Bookstore not pressured

Calendar removal not pressured, director says

The OSU Bookstore at Derby Hall removed a controversial calendar from its shelves recently without being pressured by university officials, the director of the bookstore said Thursday.

"No one can dictate to me what to take off the shelf," said Robert R. Carlson, director of OSU Bookstores.

The calendar, "Images: Men of the Scarlet and Gray," features bare-chested male OSU students and has been a subject of controversy since last spring.

Carlson said the calendar's racy content had nothing to do with its removal from the shelves.

He said he ordered the removal of the calendars after Anne H. Chasser, OSU licensing program coordinator, informed him the product was unlicensed.

Carlson said he didn't realize the calendar contained OSU trademarks until after it was put on sale.

"It doesn't have anything to do with the calendar," Carlson said. "It just wasn't licensed."

The university considered legal action against the calendar's producer, Sean Ashbrook, because officials said the unlicensed calendar used OSU trademarks, said Leslie A. Winters, director of contracts administration.

One photograph includes a scarlet and gray "Ohio State" towel, and another includes an aerial view of Ohio Stadium.

Ashbrook said Wednesday that he was told by a buyer for the bookstores that pressure to remove the calendars came from Chasser.

Chasser said Thursday, "We didn't order them off the shelf. It was the bookstore's decision to take them off the counter."

Louanne White, buyer for OSU Bookstores, refused to comment.

Winters said the university does not intend to sue Ashbrook for trademark violations.

"It's not a big enough deal to sue over," Winters said. "It would just create more publicity for Sean Ashbrook so he can sell more calendars."

In 1984, university officials decided not to sue another unlicensed publication for using OSU trademarks, Chasser said.

The September 1984 issue of Playboy magazine, with a feature

titled "Girls of the Big Ten," drew no response from the university despite using several OSU trademarks. The university was aware that registered trademarks were used, Chasser said. A picture of an Ohio State pennant is included on a page next to a photograph of a nude woman, and another photograph shows a woman wearing a cut-off "Ohio State" T-shirt.

Chasser said the university didn't pursue trademark violations as aggressively in 1984 as it does today.

When Ashbrook, a sophomore from Akron, began producing his calendar last spring, the Ohio Attorney General's office sent him a letter trying to dissuade him from continuing the project.

Copies of the letter were also sent to Ashbrook's printer and the academic adviser to the OSU Entrepreneur Network, of which Ashbrook is a member.