Condom giveaways are common on campus. So is political expression about the Middle East. What is not common: combining the two. That's just what a group of pro-Israel students did at UC San Diego last month. From the Baltimore Jewish Times:

A condom giveaway on the campus of U.C. San Diego has gotten plenty of people hot and bothered.

As the highlight of an on-campus campaign entitled "Got Israel?" pro-Israel students at UCSD recently handed out condoms and T-shirts emblazoned with an anthropomorphic condom cartoon and the catchphrase, "Israel: It's still safe to come."

In addition to spouting a double entendre lewd enough to make Benny Hill blush, the condoms proved the point that Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which women and homosexuals are entitled to equal rights, according to the giveaway's student organizers.

The condoms came equipped with a card discussing "sexual freedoms and women's rights in different Mideastern countries and Israel. It showed the literacy rates of women, the percentage of women employed, whether homosexuality is legal. On that basis, people could make their own decisions on how free and democratic Israel is," said co-organizer Eddie Cohen.

But not everyone got the joke, or cared to. After photos and an article about the late April giveaway appeared in the San Diego Jewish Heritage newspaper, the campus Hillel began receiving some angry phone calls. Executive Director Rabbi Lisa Goldstein confirmed that she has lost some donors, but she would not say how many.

Goldstein is conflicted about the event, which was not sponsored by Hillel or by any school funding. On the one hand, the poor taste of the giveaway cost her donors. On the other hand, she thinks those who were offended by the giveaway are awfully stuffy: "The students are kind of bewildered why the rest of the community is making such a big deal about this," she said. "You would think Californians would be more open-minded and understand things come in a context, but I don't know." I think perhaps the point is that Californians do understand that things come in a context (we'll assume Goldstein's pun was unintended). I'd go so far as to venture that the reason some people were so upset by the campaign is that the students who conceived and organized it showed a deplorable failure to comprehend either the wider context of their actions or the moral obligation not to diminish their cause for the sake of attracting attention to it.

Well, if the worst that can be said is that it is in poor taste -- or indeed, sophomoric -- than that is ordinary student behavior, it seems to me. A disconcerted dean or Hillel director is then earning his or her salary to do what might be done to protect the students from the consequences of ordinary late adolescent silliness and keep the thing in perspective for the outside world. I actually don't see a whole lot of problem here. This is in part what the kids who aren't totally focused on their GPA perhaps ought to be doing.

There's that phrase again--"open-minded." As I understand it, this now translates as "takes no umbrage with me or my politics."

A very sloppy event. Funny, though.

And in exceedingly poor taste, which just makes it that much more appealing, honestly.

"On the one hand, the poor taste of the giveaway cost her donors."

I suggest they use a different brand next time.

I hate to say this, but two things might have made this event much more acceptable:

(1) Restrict it to the campus free speech area, where fewer people would have been intimidated or put off by it;

(2) Have any such event subject to prior approval by a dean or faculty member.

That would certainly solve the problem.

One thing that concerns me is that, while we may all decry administratorss playing various games with student speech, there's nearly as large a problem with faculty reactions -- it seems to me Erin takes the episode very, very seriously. It reminds me of the Dartmouth faculty getting all bent out of shape over fraternity pranks, to the point that it is FACULTY pressure that's playing a part there in attempts to eliminate or homogenize fraternities -- dog-gone, can't have things like beer pong, this is a COLLEGE, darn it!!

I usually agree with Erin's judgements, but I think she's being too hard-on them. If you take away our juvenile puns, the terrorists have already won!

Bill,

No one's taking away the juvenile puns! I've made many myself--and some of them have cost me. I once lost a book contract, in fact, because a referee felt I made unfair light of matters she took very seriously. I merely point out that indecent exposures--even of the punning kind--do have social costs, and that just because a student's expression is protected, as this expression is, does not mean that there might not be a price to pay for it. In this case, the students did damage to their own cause because they failed to anticipate a very predictable reaction within their own community.

I'd be interested to hear what actual damage the students did to their own cause. A few hundred bucks fewer to the Hillel, possibly a donation that might not have been made due to the bad economy anyhow?

Again, this is another version of "those awful, awful boys at gamma delt, publshing that newsletter with that really indecent joke in it." The dean decries it and says the alumni will be all atwitter. 'twas ever thus, and I suppose part of the fun for the sophomores involved is watching the consternation of the adults.

Erin: "[J]ust because a student's expression is protected, as this expression is, does not mean that there might not be a price to pay for it."

Exactly. It's a matter of maturity to realize that the good taste/bad taste split varies from person to person, that what one person finds funny another may be offended by, and to count the cost when one decides to risk offending others.

Of course 90% of the fun is watching the consternation of adults. That's what's so funny about the idea that college students are all grown up.

And what better place to learn these things than as an undergraduate, where the environment is an odd mix of protected school and real-world consequences? Regarding the consequences of this particular stunt, it's worth pointing out that "elite" opinion at a place like UC is largely pro-Palestinian, and it is likely that the students changed no minds but had some fun and the kind of learning experience Laura alludes to.

If Erin's opinion on this is representative of faculty at Ivy-type institutions (it takes me back to my own student days), I have some concern that faculty continues to be biased toward the grade-grubber type who takes no risks of the sort these students took -- and indeed, biased toward the sort of Eddie Haskell suckup we saw getting his just deserts in the Jayson Blair case. Those who knew him when said he had the same effect on profs that he had on Times editors.

"Oh, NO, Professor O'Connor, I would NEVER think of such a childish action as those students passing out condoms on the quad!!"

Both the students and the profs who are fooled by them have missed a major point of education.

Ah yes, Eddie Haskell.

The last time I tossed in an Eddie Haskell reference at work one of the our young attorneys turned to me with a doe-eyed look and asked "Did he work here before I arrived?" Sigh.

stolypin, I think the correct answer would be, "No, he's still here, he just made partner."

Ture, true. I might add we have more than one Eddie Haskell here.