LJWorld.com

• Email
• iPod-friendly
• Print

A budget amendment aimed at prohibiting state universities from showing videos in sex education classes is on its way to the governor's desk.

The rider to budget legislation was approved Thursday by the House. It then survived a House-Senate conference committee ironing out differences in each chamber's budget bill.

"There was very little discussion," said Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence. "It's on its way to Governor's Office now ... I'm hoping she'll line-item veto it."

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius last week discouraged lawmakers from meddling in state university curricula. Her office Thursday declined comment on the amendment, which was attached to the budget bill that won approval later Thursday in both the House and Senate.

Claims in dispute

The amendment, introduced by Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, passed the Senate last week. It directs the Board of Regents to immediately pull the funding of any department caught buying or showing obscene materials in its sex education courses.

Wagle based her amendment on an anonymous student's claim that Kansas University professor Dennis Dailey showed pornographic videos and photographs of children's genitalia in a human sexuality class he teaches.

Others in the class disagreed with Wagle's account.

"He showed pictures of vaginas to show how different they can be and how they can change over time," said Teresa Scalise, a 21-year-old senior and Dailey's teaching assistant.

Professor Dennis Dailey has been relatively quiet about the Legislature's interest in his sexuality class at Kansas University. "I believe I have been well-served by my silence," he said.

The photographs, she said, were part of a class on sexual development.

"I want to be a doctor, an OB-GYN," Scalise said. "I need to see that. How can that be pornographic? You see the same thing in med school."

Jen Hein, a junior in advertising and strategic communication, is taking Dailey's class and has watched the videos in question. She said they were not pornographic.

"Are you kidding? I've seen worse stuff on HBO," she said.

Hein said students were surprised by a recent video involving gay and lesbian couples because it was different than pornographic depictions of gay sex.

"It was very tender and passionate -- quite contradictory to the way it's portrayed in porn," she said. "Everybody was surprised. It was educational."

Hein and Scalise said the videos lasted between five and 10 minutes.

• 6News video: Kansas legislature puts amendment into budget bill • Sebelius budget proposal advances (4-2-03) • Lawmakers attack sex class at KU (3-27-03) • 'Sexologist' offers insights to KU students (8-20-98)

"It's not like it's a big part of the class," Scalise said. "It's three times a semester."

Served by silence

Contacted by the Journal-World, Dailey, 64, said he had decided not to get into a "war" with the Legislature and was reluctant to say much.

"I believe I have been well-served by my silence," he said.

He insisted the videos and slides shown in the classroom were purchased "from a credible educational organization and were specifically made for educational and clinical purposes."

KU spokesman Todd Cohen said the university was confident the videos shown in Dailey's class were not pornographic.

"They are explicit; they are designed for a college-level sex education course," he said. "They are not pornographic."

Cohen said university officials had been flooded with e-mails in support of Dailey. "The response has been 99 percent positive," he said.

Chilling effect

Bill Rich, a law professor at Washburn University, said that if the amendment survived Sebelius' veto, it was unlikely the videos would be considered obscene under the law.

"If you have a professor who's prepared to make the argument that the video in question was being shown with an educational purpose within an accepted university curriculum, you would have a very difficult time meeting the standard," Rich said.

Rich said he was more concerned about the amendment's chilling effect.

"The fear of litigation would be substantial," he said, adding, "I'm afraid the Legislature is overstating its case in a way that suggests it doesn't know or care about the standards of free speech and education. And in a national sense, that doesn't help the state's reputation."

Dailey is in "phased retirement" at KU. He plans to teach the course in the fall semester "for certain, and in the spring semester, maybe."

After spring 2004, he said, he will be "playing it by ear. I'm not sure what I'll be doing."