MADISON, WI — Students at the University of Wisconsin Law School are not at all pleased the administration abruptly cancelled a planned event to promote safe and healthy sex. They’re calling the April 23rd cancellation a violation of their First Amendment rights.Planned since February by the Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice, the “Sex Toys 101” event was designed to provide sexuality education and discussions about the law and adult toys. The university at first approved the event and accepted the student group’s special-event fees, then cancelled the affair without warning hours before it was to begin.
The law school’s associate dean publicly explained the event was cancelled due to “misunderstandings and miscommunications” and implied it violated school policy about commercial endorsements and product sales. He said the group would be reimbursed for fees paid to the university, but not for the products it purchased to give away. He also told the campus newspaper, The Badger Herald, the event could be rescheduled if the students agreed “no commercial products will be sold, promoted or endorsed.”
Student organizers, however, uncovered what they viewed as a more insidious reason for the cancellation. They claim the event was cancelled and promotional posters were ripped from the law school’s walls without notice because “some people found them offensive,” according to Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice Chair Maria Selsor.
“[Associate Law School] Dean [Walter] Dickey’s response was that it did not matter whether it was a sale or not, there were to be ‘no sex toys on law school premises,’” the group said in an official complaint filed with the dean’s office.
They want “a formal apology, refund of [all] event expenses and clarification of student organization event rules,” according to The Badger Herald. In the formal complaint, Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice alleged the administration’s actions were “both procedurally and substantively unjust” and the group was “unfairly targeted in a manner that constitutes both discrimination and a possible violation of our First Amendment rights.”
They should make impressive attorneys one day.
According to Donald Downs, a UW political science professor and chair of the Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights, the dispute boils down to whether the students intended to allow the event to be used as a promotional venue for commercial entities. One such entity was local retailer A Woman’s Touch Sexuality Resource Center, which planned to send a women’s sexuality lecturer to the event.
According to Selsor, A Woman’s Touch “received no monetary benefit from coming in — they do it as a public service. They’re the only people in the Midwest, basically, that know so much about women’s sexuality, so they’re the perfect people to come in [and speak].”
“Whether [the administration] had a basis for shutting down the entire presentation would depend upon how central the promotion of commercial objects was to the presentation,” Downs told The Badger Herald. “The larger question to be asked is to what extent can the law school set reasonable limits on presentations that advocate certain sexual practices because they have an interest in basic decency.”
