As an art historian, Kurt was deeply concerned about censorship, and ways in which a state attempts to enforce morality. In this lecture at UCLA in 1966, assembled from notes, Kurt reviews the issue of obscenity--both past and present--and the attempts by the State of California to prosecute poet Steve Richmond on charges of obscenity for his publication Earth Rose. "The Superior Court," states Kurt, "has indicated that the standard of "customary limits of candor" should be based on a National rather than local level. The establishment of a National standard against which material should be tested is nearly impossible to establish."
