The University's facilities department has issued an apology to the LGBT community for its accidental removal last week of posters across campus advertising a panel discussion on safe gay sex.
"There was a breakdown of communication between facilities and Public Safety, and within facilities," said Chad Klaus, director of customer service and quality improvement for facilities.
The miscommunication led to hundreds of posters being removed last Tuesday and Wednesday by facilities staff, he said.
Public Safety instructed facilities to remove pornographic posters that had been put up by a group calling themselves the "Queer Mafia," but facilities' staff mistakenly also removed posters advertising a discussion about safer sex and other sex week events said Debbie Bazarsky, LGBT student services coordinator.
Public Safety declined to comment on its role in the removal of the posters.
The apology from facilities calmed concerns that the posters had been removed as an act of intolerance.
"There's an overwhelming relief that the [LGBT] community wasn't targeted by somebody with ill intent," she said.
The flap over the posters began last Monday when sponsors of the program titled, "From Top to Bottom: Everything There is to Know about Gay Sex," raised concerns about partial nudity in a poster created by LGBT student services to advertise the program.
Some sponsors felt the posters offered no context for the pictures, and students also complained, said Bazarsky, who agreed last Tuesday to remove the posters.
Upset about the removal of these posters, some members of the LGBT community fired back by posting a second set of fliers that went beyond partial nudity to outright pornography, Bazarsky said.
Public Safety then sent facilities a description of the pornographic posters and requested they be removed, said Jim Consolloy, grounds manager at facilities.
Through a miscommunication, all posters relating to LGBT were removed by facilities last Tuesday and Wednesday. LGBT students services put up a thousand new posters Wednesday night, which were again removed overnight by facilities.
The mistake did not come to light at facilities until Thursday, Klaus said. After a Public Safety investigation, he and Vice President for Facilities Kathleen Mulligan apologized by email to the LGBT community Friday.
Betsy Smith '03, co-president of the Pride Alliance, said the LGBT community was relieved that the posters had not come down through malice.
"It was comforting to know that it wasn't the case," she said.
However, past intolerant acts make the community suspicious of things like last week's incident, Smith said.
The concern over the posters did draw attention about the safe sex events last week, Bazarsky said.
"It galvanized the community," she said.
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