Monday, Apr. 01, 1940

Privacy in the Bath

Alhambra, a Los Angeles suburb, is an ordinary U. S. town. Girl students in its high school, like those in many another, have to attend gymnasium classes and afterwards take a shower bath. Two months ago Alhambra's high-school girls moved into a new building, where they had to undress and shower in a big common shower room. This seemed all right to most of them. But not to tall, moon-faced Joan Aveline Lawrence, 16. After one horrid ordeal, Joan refused to shower again in public even if they flunked her for it.

Last week Joan, backed by her father, an engineer, sued for an injunction to restrain the Board of Education from flunking her. Her complaint: the free-for-all shower room 1) is immoral, 2) violates a State law against disrobing in public, 3) encroaches on her Constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The trial opened with a lively debate between opposing counsel over whether privacy was a 1) civil, 2) political or 3) property right. Judge Roy V. Rhodes quickly put a stop to this argument, got down to bare facts. Miss Lawrence, wearing a tight-fitting red sweater and black & white checked skirt, was called to the stand. Good & loud, she told her story.

"I took off my gym suit and then went out for my shower, holding a towel before me. Some of the girls were in the community showers--they were naked--and some were quite bold. I went to one of the [five] private showers, but several other girls were in line for them and I had to stand there and wait my turn. The girl in front of me, I remember, turned and told me that my face was very red. I did feel quite hot. ... I was brought up not to undress in front of other kids and the Board of Education has absolutely no authority to make me do it now."

School Superintendent George E. Bettinger admitted that 120 naked girls used the shower room at the same time, explained that under the old private shower system some girls shirked bathing. Next witness, Dr. Charles Bursch of the State Education Department, announced that the Department would approve no plans for school buildings with private showers.

Reason: it was too hard for teachers to keep an eye on them. Said he, "We have found from long experience that the group shower facilities give much better light and air ... more healthful conditions."

Meanwhile 275 of the school's 800 girls signed a petition demanding private showers. Cried some of their parents: "[The common shower system] is a step towards Communism." An earnest editorial writer in Aztec, student weekly, hotly retorted: "With every advance from filthiness to cleanliness, prudery raised its ugly head. . . ." This week the trial was adjourned for three months to let the Board of Education think the whole thing over.

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