By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
The Jesuit-run Boston College is under fire for a merchandising deal struck with risqué lingerie giant, Victoria’s Secret which will provide coeds with skimpy tank tops and short-shorts bearing the school’s logo.
“It’s disgraceful and appalling,” said C.J. Doyle, a Boston College alumnus who runs the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, to the Boston Herald. “This is just one more example of the university’s callous contempt for Catholic sensibilities and its complete indifference to what remains of its Catholic identity.”
School officials, however, are insisting they never okayed the deal.
Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn said the school was “very selective” when it agreed to let the lingerie company sell Boston College sweatshirts, sweatpants, T-shirts and flip-flops as part of the chain’s youth-oriented Pink Line.
“We thought it was a tasteful line of clothing that college students wear,” he said, denying that the college had any knowledge of the “short shorts” bearing the name and image of the college’s mascot, the Eagles
However, the Herald reports that stores are not only selling hot-pink Boston College tank tops and Eagles “short shorts,” one store is actually displaying the items next to life-sized photographs of nearly naked women dressed in lingerie.
Some faculty members are also complaining about the attire.
Sharlene Hesse-Biber the director of the Women’s Studies Center at Boston College said “There is no way that we want that (BC) logo to be interpreted as ‘We OK the sexualization of women.’”
Victoria’s Secret stores started selling university-themed clothing from 33 schools with strong name recognition in July. The Collegiate Licensing Co. has arranged for some of the revenue to go to the schools. Two schools — the universities of Minnesota and North Carolina — have pulled out of the deal.
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly/Women of Grace. http://www.womenofgrace.com
