Funded by student fees; didn’t want people to ‘sensationalize it’
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse has some interesting funding priorities, and it doesn’t want the public to know about all of them.
The taxpayer-funded university gave a 59-year-old porn star $5,000 from mandatory student fees to lecture students, and kept the event off its public calendar, the La Crosse Tribune reports.
It also didn’t notify the media of the National Freedom of Speech Week event with Nina Hartley, only advertising it on campus digital signs.
Chancellor Joe Gow admitted that it was his idea to invite the 35-year adult industry veteran and sex-education activist to address students on “the realities of adult entertainment and the benefits of people taking ownership of their sexuality” at last week’s event, the Tribune says.
The event drew about 70 students. Hartley also did a lunch event with Gow and a group of students and faculty. Gow said the university found the porn star by “going onto websites.”
The chancellor said he wanted students to know that sexuality “plays a healthy role in people’s lives” and learn from Hartley’s example. The university didn’t advertise the event beyond the campus signs because people who didn’t plan to attend would “sensationalize it.”
The Tribune said it was contacted by “several school officials,” none of whom would speak on the record, to question “the value of Hartley’s appearance and and the unusually covert way the university promoted” an official event for National Freedom of Speech Week.
Read a cached version of the article (the Tribune is mistakenly blocking access on its own site).
MORE: Porn star gives college students ‘Intro to BDSM’ training
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