Sexuality class included an orgy, report says

US-Berkeley suspends student-run course after newspaper revelations

By REBECCA TROUNSON AND STUART SILVERSTEIN

Los Angeles Times

Sunday, February 24, 2002

The University of California at Berkeley has suspended a course on male sexuality amid allegations that its students engaged in an orgy at a class party and watched a student coordinator have sex on stage at a strip club.

The university suspended the student-run, for-credit class after its coordinators failed to show up for a meeting with a faculty sponsor. Allegations about the course had been published in the campus newspaper, The Daily Californian.

Berkeley spokeswoman Janet Gilmore said the university was investigating the course and also reviewing its counterpart, a class on female sexuality.

"Obviously, the events described in the Daily Cal are not part of the approved course content," Gilmore said.

The faculty sponsor of both classes, Caren Kaplan, who is chair of the women's studies department, could not be reached for comment, nor could students in the course.

The courses are offered under Berkeley's popular "Democratic Education at California" program, known as "de-cal," and are sponsored, but not funded, by the university. They are initiated and run by student coordinators with a faculty member responsible for overseeing the content and grades, university officials said.

The roughly 100 offerings for the spring semester include a history of Israel, Greek folk dancing and a class about blackjack, in which students are taught how to count cards, according to the schedule on the de-cal Web site. Students receive up to four units of credit.

Several students involved in the male sexuality class last semester told The Daily Californian that the orgy occurred at the home of an instructor and was intended to help students get acquainted. It was not mandatory, an instructor said.

Students said some of those who attended also played a game in which they privately took Polaroid pictures of their genitalia, with the group later attempting to match the photos with the correct owner.

Another student told the newspaper that a group of students in the class chose a trip to a gay strip club as their final project, where they watched the class leader strip and have sex on stage.

The alleged incidents and resulting suspension touched off an uproar on the famously liberal campus. In letters to the editor of the Daily Cal, several students vigorously defended the sexuality classes, with one describing them as "educational gems." Alumni, in contrast, ridiculed them and threatened to withhold support from the university.

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