Screwing with free speech?

Despite overwhelming student opposition statewide, university system officials are drawing closer to a policy that will regulate screenings of obscene movies on college campuses.

In the wake of this spring’s controversy over a planned screening of Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, one of the most expensive pornographic films ever made, at the Hoff Theater, the state legislature required the Board of Regents to create a policy for each of the 13 colleges it oversees.

But even though a policy is inevitable, members of the Student Government Association plan to protest it tonight, arguing any restrictions would violate the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech.

"We already have a policy — it’s the Constitution,” said Kenton Stadler, the arts and humanities legislator for the SGA who is sponsoring a bill opposing any kind of resolution. The SGA is expected to vote on the bill today, one week after the University of Maryland, Baltimore County passed a similar measure.

A draft of the system-wide policy indicates that universities could request organizations planning to show objectionable movies for entertainment include an educational component. If the group refuses or is unable to do so, then the university would be held responsible.

Because the policy guidelines do not specify what qualifies as obscene content, no specific type of movie would be restricted, University System Chancellor Brit Kirwan said.

“At its core, a positive feature of it would be no movie would be prohibited from being shown,” Kirwan said. “The trigger for an educational program is content-neutral.”

Even the possibillity of a broad policy is upsetting to students, But films aren’t guaranteed the same first amendment protections as are other fully protected forms of expression, like newspapers, books, magazines and the Internet, according to a letter from Robert O’Neil — the director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Virginia, who consulted with the state attorney general’s office on the policy.

The vast majority of state senators didn’t seem to believe so either.

When word of the screening reached the General Assembly last spring, then-state Sen. Andy Harris (R-Baltimore and Harford) attempted to withhold funding for any public university that screened a pornographic movie.

Harris eventually compromised with other state legislators by decreeing the university system must craft a policy to regulate obscene films.

“It would be extraordinary for us to refuse a mandate from the General Assembly, and I think we would very much run the risk of some policy being created that we wouldn’t have any real say over,” Kirwan said. “I don’t think any of us want to go there.”

Sarah Elfreth, the student member of the Board of Regents — a 17-member panel of gubernatorial appointees who oversee the university system — acknowledged there will be a policy but said students across the state are generally opposed to it.

“There shouldn’t be a policy; that’s the overwhelming opinion of students,” Elfreth said.
“We’re walking the fine line of constitutionality,” she added. “There’s going to be a policy, but we’re going to make it the best and least restrictive possible.”

At a meeting last week, some members of the powerful University Senate executive committee expressed concern that a broadly sweeping policy could have unintended consequences.

“It basically cedes entire control to the university making the judgment,” physics professor Thomas Cohen said, adding he was more worried about universities other than this one abusing the policy. “By avoiding defining pornography, we have opened up this Pandora's box for anything that's unpopular.”

At a meeting yesterday that included university presidents, staff and students from state institutions, reaction to the policy was generally positive, Kirwan said.

“I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of the people in the room ... thought that this was on the right track,” he said.

Elfreth said she hoped to further gauge student opinion on the policy at an SGA forum on free speech Oct. 13. The Board of Regents is set to discuss the issue ten days later.

Kirwan said he is mainly relying on university presidents to gather input on the policy from their respective institutions but added that he is interested in hearing from anyone.

“It’s going to be read and thought about ... and concerns that are raised that we feel need to be addressed, are going to be addressed,” Kirwan said.

cox@umdbk.com, openchowski@umdbk.com