Associate Dean Walter J. Dickey, of the University of Wisconsin Law School, is no stranger to these pages. Back in 2006, ATL named him America’s hottest law school dean (male, B-bracket).

Now he makes these pages for less positive reasons. From the Badger Herald:

The University of Wisconsin Law School canceled an event with controversial sexual content last Wednesday, and some students are calling the action a possible First Amendment violation.

The Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice had planned an event called “Sex Toys 101” to promote safe alternatives to sex, educate about sexual health and pleasure, and discuss law concerning sex toys, according to the group.

As long as you’re outside Alabama, a Tupperware party for dildos should be just fine, right?

Well, maybe not. From a tipster:

[Dean Dickey] cancelled a sex toy party, sponsored by a pro-choice student group, because he found the sex-positive subject matter offensive. And he did it 2 hours before the event, without explanation. Then he hid behind adminstrative rules, then it became clear that he just didn’t like it. First Amendment violation, sex toys, Dean Dickey… You have to run this!

Dean Dickey’s dictat displeased the students:

Members of the organization submitted a formal complaint to Law School Dean Ken Davis Friday, requesting a formal apology, refund of event expenses and clarification of student organization event rules.

In an interview Monday, Law School Associate Dean Walter Dickey said the event was canceled for content-neutral reasons, pointing to a Student Organization Office policy that prohibits the promotion or sale of commercial products by a private company.

Professor Marc Randazza’s take: “That sure sounds reasonable, and it might be if it wasn’t bulls**t!”

Why does Professor Randazza view Dean Dickey’s defense as BS? Find out, after the jump.

In Professor Randazza’s view, the facts don’t bear out Dean Dickey’s defense:

According to Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice Chair Maria Selsor, the group brought in an expert from local retailer A Woman’s Touch to give a presentation. “They received no monetary benefit from coming in — they do it as a public service,” Selsor said.

C’mon, Dean Dickey — haven’t you heard of pro boner work?

But all’s well that ends well. From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Calling it a misunderstanding, Law School Dean Kenneth Davis said the group can hold the event if no commercial products are promoted or sold….

In a response to the [group’s] complaint, Davis said he takes “great pride” in the “commitment to promoting the free expression of ideas.” He said he was concerned the event violated student rules stipulating that registered student organizations cannot use university facilities to sell or promote commercial products.

“In my view,” he wrote, there was an “honest misunderstanding over the application of University rules to an admittedly difficult issue — the use of Law School facilities for an event prominently featuring a private commercial vendor.”

At UW Law School, think of sex toys like sex itself: if you’re selling it, that’s a problem; if you’re giving it away for free, it’s all good.

We contacted Dean Dickey for comment, but haven’t heard back from him yet. If and when we do, we will update this post.

(Below the collected links, for those of you who are interested, we’ve posted two primary sources: (1) an email that went out to student group leaders at the law school on Friday afternoon, and (2) the letter of protest sent to Dean Davis.)

Wisconsin Law School Dickeys around with the First Amendment [Legal Satyricon]
Law School shuts down ‘Sex Toys 101’ talk [Badger Herald]
UW students want apology for canceled sex toy seminar [Wisconsin State Journal]

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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL — EMAIL CIRCULATED TO STUDENT GROUP LEADERS

From: [redacted]
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 4:33 PM
To: [various student leaders]
Subject: Tell Dean Davis You Value Free Speech

Dear Student Leaders (PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR MEMBERS):

You are being contacted because you have been identified as a leader of a UW Law School student organization. The Board of the Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice feels you will be interested in this issue because it involves the freedom of expression of ALL student groups.

Please see the attached letter for a full description of the events that took place on April 23rd, when the law school administration canceled one of our planned events and took down our posters, less than two hours before the event was scheduled to take place. We are confident that despite your personal opinion about whether our posters were objectionable (and know that some on our own Board did indeed think so), you will show your solidarity with us by standing up for freedom of expression and open communication. Our event complied with school rules about events, and did not involve sales of any products. Its purpose was educational only.

If you and your organization value your freedom of expression and, like us, are concerned about the manner in which student orgs have been treated, WE URGE YOU TO WRITE/EMAIL DEAN DAVIS ABOUT THOSE CONCERNS. Below please find a sample email you and your organization can send to:

[Dean Davis’s email address]

“Dear Dean Davis:

As a representative of the following student organization, I am concerned about the events which took place on April 23, 2008 when the law school decided to cancel a student organization event and take down their posters. As future lawyers and UW students, we value freedom of expression and the open interchange of ideas. We are confident that the Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Choice (WLSRJ) did not plan to sell any commercial products at their event “Sex Toys 101” and should have been allowed to continue their event as planned.

Even if the posters for this event were offensive to some, we do not agree with the way the administration handled the situation. We support WLSRJ’s demand for a public apology, return of expenses to the organization, and a clear and unambiguous procedure for dealing with law student events or publications that the administration finds objectionable.

In solidarity,

Your Law Student Group”

Of course, feel free to draft your own letter. Thank you in advance for your support!

[redacted]

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL — LETTER OF PROTEST TO DEAN KENNETH DAVIS

April 25, 2008

Dean Kenneth B. Davis, Jr.
University of Wisconsin Law School
975 Bascom Mall
Madison, WI 53706

“Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

—UW Board of Regents, 1894

Re: Formal Complaint by Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice

Dear Dean Davis:

We, the Executive Board of Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice (WLSRJ), submit this formal response to the events of Wednesday, April 23, 2008 for your consideration and timely action. On that day, our organization’s event, Sex Toys 101, was canceled and its advertising removed, without justification or consultation, and despite the fact that it violated no school rules. This letter outlines the chronology of the events in question. We conclude that the decision to cancel our event and remove our posters was both procedurally and substantively unjust, constituted discrimination against our organization, and sets a dangerous precedent for the future freedom of expression of all student organizations in the law school. This letter articulates our request for a formal apology from the administration, a refund of our expenses, a clarification of the rules and regulations that apply to student organization events, and an unambiguous commitment to follow a specified and non-discriminatory procedure in the rare circumstance when a student event must be canceled or advertising removed.

As exemplified by the above quote by the UW Board of Regents, the University of Wisconsin has made a promise to support the cause of free expression and that the UW Law School should be a place where that promise is respected. Wednesday’s actions by the administration disregarded the Law School’s duty to foster that freedom and threatens the ability of student organizations to facilitate the “fearless sifting and winnowing” of ideas on which our University prides itself.

Chronology of Events

On Tuesday, February 26, at the first WLSRJ meeting of the term, a board member who had attended the LSRJ National Leadership Retreat “Justice Doesn’t Just Happen” relayed a number of ideas for possible events she had gleaned from conversations with other LSRJ students from around the country. Another law school had offered a sex toy seminar for its students, and our board members were interested in offering a similar event at UW Law School. Our group decided to contact A Woman’s Touch (AWT), a Madison Sexuality Resource Center to explore the possibility of hosting an educational sex toy seminar at the law school. Its purpose was to promote safe alternatives to sex, educate about sexual health and pleasure, discuss the recent case law surrounding sex toys, and promote sexual hygiene. This event is directly aligned with the many purposes of our organization: to promote women’s sexual and reproductive health through education, foster open discussion about sexuality, which in turn may lead to fewer people becoming exposed to sexually transmitted diseases and reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancies through teaching alternatives to sexual intercourse.

In addition, realizing the potentially controversial nature of the seminar, our president volunteered to communicate with the administration to see whether such an event would be permissible. (See Attachment A.) On Wednesday, March 12, the administration informed us via email that as long as our event complied with the rules and regulations set out in the student organization handbook, there would be no problem hosting such an event in the law school. (See Attachment A.) Our president and another officer discussed via email the student organization rules, and decided that it would not be permissible to sell any products at the event. (See Attachment B.) We informed AWT and their manager agreed to send a staff member to present their standard “Sex Toys 101” workshop, an educational introduction to sex toys provided free of charge and without any products for sale. We scheduled the presentation for Wednesday, April 23 at 3 PM.

On Monday, April 21, our announcement for our sex toy seminar was included in the SBA weekly email to the law student body. (See Attachment C.) The announcement specified that the event was free of charge, was educational in nature, and open to all. Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon, our posters went up around the Law School in the same places that other student organizations advertise and on our own WLSRJ bulletin board. Although these posters were provocative, and intended to spark debate and interest in the seminar, not one of our board members received any complaints from students, faculty or staff regarding the content of our advertising on Monday or Tuesday.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 23, at approximately 1:40 PM, our point person for the event read the email sent by the administration at 1:21 PM entitled “Cancel the Sex Toy Sale.” (See Attachment D.) The email stated: “Associate Dean Walter Dickey has determined that your student organization may not sell, promote, advertise (etc.) sex toys on law school premises. You need to cancel today’s event.” Our president responded immediately via email clarifying that the event was NOT a sale of any kind and that, although prizes were to be given away for participation in games and legal trivia, no sex toy products were going to be sold on school premises. (See Attachment E.) The board member at the law school responded to Dean Robarts in person with the same information: the event was educational and would not involve sales in any way. It was at this time that our board member in charge of the event realized that all posters advertising our event had been removed from all bulletin boards in the law school, including the one we had posted on our own bulletin board.

Dean Robarts communicated to Dean Dickey that our event did not involve sale or commercial promotion of anything. Dean 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.” Our board member suggested a compromise in which WLSRJ would agree not to give any sex toys as prizes if the workshop was allowed to proceed. The only sex toys would be those brought by the presenter as educational aids for the seminar. The answer from Dean Dickey was the same: “no sex toys on law school premises.” The final attempt to come to an agreement was an offer to conduct our seminar on the use, health, hygiene, of sex toys without using any products as aids. The answer communicated to our board member from Dean Dickey, again via Dean Robarts, was simply “no.” Our board member called AWT to cancel the presentation at approximately 2:15PM, 45 minutes before the seminar was scheduled to begin.

By this time, it was too late to cancel the order for pizza that WLSRJ had purchased for the event. Dean Robarts agreed that our board member could host an impromptu meeting in the room that had been reserved for the event in which interested students could eat pizza and discuss the cancellation. She accompanied our board member to room 2260 to remove the posters Dean Dickey had instructed staff to place on the doors to the room informing students that “the event that was scheduled in this room at 3pm is canceled. –Walter Dickey.” Dean Robarts also spoke with students briefly at the event and assure our membership that our officers followed the proper procedure in receiving administration authorization for our event well ahead of time. She emphasized that the cancellation was not the result of our board having done anything wrong.

A number of students who attended our impromptu meeting were justifiably upset and requested that our board take action on their behalf and on the behalf of student organizations throughout the Law School that should be protected from unilateral and discriminatory action founded on a subjective determination of “offensive content.”

Substantive & Procedural Injustice

Dean Dickey’s administrative actions on Wednesday were both procedurally and substantively unjust. We believe that our organization was unfairly targeted in a manner that constitutes both discrimination and a possible violation of our First Amendment rights.

Removal of Posters

The removal of WLSRJ posters from public bulletin boards around the Law School, and from WLSRJ’s own bulletin board peremptorily and without consultation with WLSRJ officers was inappropriate. This action was discriminatory in that it unfairly targeted our organization on the grounds of a subjective determination that the content of our posters was “offensive”. We find this action particularly distressing considering that our organization specifically reached out to the law school administration to ensure the success of this event. We were available for discussion and compromise if people found our posters offensive. We understand that a past complaint, lodged by the Public Interest Law Foundation, addressed this issue specifically, and that it is therefore doubly problematic that the administration saw fit to unilaterally remove all WLSRJ advertising at the eleventh hour, without requesting that our board edit or remove the posters ourselves.

It is not the policy of the law school simply remove posters because some students or faculty find them inappropriate. There should be a higher standard. Our posters were not discriminatory nor otherwise in violation of the law or school policy. To our knowledge, the administration has not cancelled the events of any other organization as a result of complaints against advertising.

Though Dean Dickey claims our posters were removed because they promoted a commercial product, it is clear the posters were removed because the content was found to be offensive. (See Attachment F.) If Dean Dickey’s concern was that we were selling commercial products, then our assurances that this was not the case (and our offer to modify the event to further assuage that concern) should have been sufficient to calm those fears.

Cancellation of Event

The cancellation of the Sex Toys 101 seminar, also ordered unilaterally by Dean Dickey, was similarly improper. This is true particularly in regards to the manner in which it was effected and the timing of the cancellation. If complaints regarding our posters spurred the administration into action against the posters, those advertising-related complaints do not justify the administration’s impulsive action to cancel the entire event. If students found images on our posters to be offensive, they had every right to refuse to attend our event or plan their own to counter our viewpoints. Further, the administration had a period of 41 days from the time our organization received authorization for our event on March 12 to the time of the event itself on April 23. At any point in this period up to and including the hours before the event was scheduled, the Deans could have invited representatives from our board to discuss the structure of the presentation. We would have been more than willing to repeat our assurances that no sex toys would be sold and that AWT was presenting as an educational entity, as they do regularly, and would not engage in any promotional behavior. Finally, a concerned Dean could have attended the event himself to be secure in his own mind that there was no inappropriate commercial promotion taking place.

In support of our argument that the cancellation of our event constitutes discrimination against Law Students for Reproductive Justice, we submit that T-shirts bearing the phrase “Pussies need representation too,” and “Bitches need representation too,” have been for sale as a student organization fundraiser in the Atrium during the entire week in question. There is no doubt that the words “pussies” and “bitches” are offensive to some students and faculty. There is also a strong argument that the use of derogatory terms for women and female genitalia for the purpose of selling T-shirts is discriminatory. These T-shirts are at least as likely to “offend” passers-by as were our event posters. However, although there have been complaints about the shirts, the administration has treated that group with the respect and deference due a student organization and the sale continues at the front of the law school in full view of the public – as we believe it should.

This same respect and deference is due all Law School student organizations, regardless of the content of their event or posters or shirts, provided that they fall within the rules and regulations that govern student organizations. We were confident that our event fell within these rules and regulations. We were due the same procedural protections afforded to other student groups regarding the removal of our posters and the cancellation of our event. Our event was educational in nature, did not promote commercial products any more than the T-shirt sale promoted T-shirts, and complied with the rules. Fairness demands that the standard for canceling legitimate, educational, student events be applied evenly to all events and all groups, regardless of any perceived “offensiveness.”

Dean Dickey’s Response

Finally, we are particularly concerned by Dean Dickey’s stance in his emails to students that he did not cancel our event, and that only “some” of our signs were taken down. (See attached Exhibit G.) As described above, our organization received an email entitled “Cancel the sex toy sale” and signs were put up on the door of the event saying “this event is canceled – Walter Dickey.” Moreover, ALL our posters were taken down, including the one on our own bulletin board. We feel the above chronology and attached emails clearly demonstrate or event was cancelled even though we had made it abundantly clear we were not selling or promoting any products, and were otherwise not violating law school rules.

Resolving This Matter Equitably & Expediently

As a student organization dedicated in large part to education and to the free access of all to vital information, WLSRJ requests the following resolution to these events:

1) The administration communicate clearly and unambiguously to the entire student body the procedure in place for removing or editing student organization posters and for canceling student organization events. Transparency in this decision-making process is fundamental to ensuring that students’ rights are protected and that every student organization is treated with the same respect, afforded the same privileges, and held to the same standards.

2) WLSRJ further requests, due to the procedural impropriety of canceling our event less than 45 minutes before it was scheduled to begin, when notice had been given and authorization received so far in advance, that the law school reimburse our organization for the costs associated with preparing for the event. Please accept this letter as a formal request for reimbursement of the approximately $95 spent on prizes for the trivia and games we had planned to include and the $75 spent on pizza and soda. We will provide copies of our receipts at your request.

3) Finally, and most importantly, WLSRJ requests an apology to the entire school body before the end of classes from the administration acknowledging:

• that our officers followed proper procedures and received authorization from the law school administration well in advance of the event;
• that the cancellation was not the result of any wrongdoing on the part of our officers;
• that the cancellation and removal of our posters was a mishandling of this issue; and
• that action will be taken to ensure that, in the future, student organization events will be respected as demanded by the principles of fairness and academic freedom that define our university.

In light of last year’s extensive discussion devoted to the role of First Amendment protections for students and faculty and the appropriate administration responses to complaints of potentially “offensive” content in the law school, it is our hope that the administration will take our concerns under serious consideration. We remain hopeful that we can resolve this issue through the informal means we have outlined above.

We look forward to your thorough and timely response. Our mailbox is located on the first floor with the other student organization mailboxes under “Law Students for Choice.”

Sincerely,

Executive Board, Wisconsin Law Students for Reproductive Justice

CC:

Associate Dean Walter Dickey
Assistant Dean Ruth Robarts
Wisconsin Student Bar Association
University of Wisconsin Law School Student Organization Leaders