There's something embarrassing--and vaguely pornographic--in the spectacle of a leader who is not at all up to leadership. This is particularly true in higher ed, where the idealism of the enterprise tends to get a bit tarnished when those charged with ensuring it just can't manage to do so.

Duke president Richard Brodhead has been living in a hell of his own making ever since the lacrosse scandal revealed his total incapacity to uphold--or even really grasp--foundational principles such as fairness, due process, and Doing the Right Thing. Brodhead pandered and cowered and skulked his way through the extended tag-team beating administered to the falsely accused lacrosse team by the Durham D.A.'s office, the national media, and the Duke faculty, and wound up shaming himself and his university in ways that can never be undone. (This is all shorthand, I know, and if you are unclear where my statements come from, do read KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor's Until Proven Innocent).

The never-to-be-undoneness of the policy of procedural and political expediency Brodhead adopted during the long, damaging months of the lacrosse scandal were most recently on display during Duke's Sex Workers Art Show. Jay Schalin has the details:

You would think Duke University might be a little cautious about paying strippers to perform on campus. After all, there was that little incident that happened about two years ago -- something to do with a couple of strippers and some lacrosse players.

But inviting strippers to perform does not appear to be a problem as long as the intent is not to titillate men, but to shock a mixed audience with vulgarity and disparage mainstream American values. In the latter case, the university is quite willing to pay, despite a regulation reintroduced into the Bulletin of Information and Regulations after the lacrosse case that explicitly states "strippers may not be invited or paid to perform at events sponsored by individual students, residential living groups, or cohesive units."

At least, it was willing on Sunday night, when a variety of university organizations paid for a performance of the Sex Workers Art Show at the campus' Reynolds Theater. The show was sponsored by the following official university departments, centers and student organizations: the Duke Women's Center, the Duke Student Health Center, the Healthy Devils, the Program for the Study of Sexualities, the Campus Council, the Women's Studies Department, the University and Cultural Fund, Students for Choice, Students for Choice and the Sexual Assault Support Services. The Art Show received a total of $3,500 and high-level official sanctioning from the university, according to Kenneth Larrey, president of the Duke Students for an Ethical Duke,

The performers did not just take their clothes off--and the actual nudity part of the show was rather tame. But mere nudity could hardly compare with a show that began with the Art Show's founder and announcer, Annie Oakley, imploring the audience to stand up and shout "I take it up the butt!" Some other highlights, or lowlights if you prefer, included:

--A transvestite, naked except for some strategically placed tape, with the words "F___ Bush" painted on his chest, kneeled on all fours and lit a sparkler protruding out of his rectum with "America the Beautiful" playing.

--A bare-breasted stripper sang a lewd song about Saint Bridget of Ireland, with lyrics mocking the act of ascension as she climbed to the top of a stripper's pole.

--A stripper, in the guise of a U.S. flag-draped Lady Justice, emptied coins out of her scales, pulled dollar bills out of her clothes as she removed them, and yanked a string of dollar bills out of her posterior as the sound system played Dolly Parton's version of "God Bless the U.S.A." She ended her act by saluting and holding up her middle finger to the crowd. The announcer referred to it as her "Infamous Patriot Act." Her most private area was kept covered by a small American flag.

--A porn actress read a series of prose-poems. In one, entitled "Spit," she described how another actress spit into her eye and then licked it out. Another, called "Staph," was about an infection on her genitals.

--A dominatrix donned a large, "strap-on" male sex organ, and pretended to masturbate while the crowd was urged to shout "faster, faster," in Chinese.

The crowd of approximately 300 people, mostly students, roared with raucous laughter throughout the evening.

According to Larrey, Duke president Richard Brodhead "appeared to act as if he didn't want to know" when Larrey tried to bring up the apparent contradiction between the school's actions and the regulations against the hiring of strippers. Larrey said provost Peter Lange spoke to him several days before the show and said that the organizers went through the correct processes for the Sex Workers to appear on campus, and that it would be "censorious" to rescind the school's permission at that point. He also said that there was a big difference between the Sex Workers Art Show and the hiring of strippers by the Duke lacrosse team in 2006. Larrey did not say whether the provost specified what that difference was.

Larrey also contacted the campus police on the day of the event to check on whether the policy would be enforced. He was informed that the show was sanctioned by the college.