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Last Saturday night, at the University of Maryland's College Park campus, a screening of "Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge," a hard-core pornography movie, was cancelled by university officials after statehouse lawmakers threatened university funding if the film was shown.

Some students, faculty and civil libertarians are protesting the cancellation as a violation of academic freedom, free speech and university autonomy. Permit me to vigorously disagree.

Academic freedom

The porn film was offered "as a little stress break for students," says the Hoff Theater's program director, who adds that the theater is having financial difficulty competing with DVD rentals and illegal downloading. University officials defended the midnight porn flick as a "fun" alternative to off-campus binge drinking, a really lame excuse and a good indication of the mindset running the university.

This wasn't part of a university course about pornography or a comparative film study, it was a weekend porn party offered purely as entertainment and fundraising, which had about as much academic involvement as frat house beer pong or campus streaking.

Sorry, shutting down the Nude Olympics or a post-game victory celebration may be unpopular, but it doesn't rise to the level of academic freedom because it doesn't involve any academics. Am I going too fast?

Free speech

The student body president called the ban a free speech violation and another student complained, "It's a matter of them taking away our right to do something."

Hey, maybe some academic value is emerging after all: These students are about to learn that the First Amendment has limits. It doesn't protect everything they say and do, especially on campus.

Americans have an absolute right to watch porn, burn Old Glory, utter hate speech, own guns, smoke, fly the Confederate flag, hang a noose in their front yard, dress like bums and act like idiots. But all that changes when you enroll in a university (or join the military). School authorities have a constitutional right (and duty) to operate an orderly campus and pursue the school's academic mission.

The U.S. Supreme Court is clear on this. On the one hand, students can protest and express themselves so long as they don't disrupt the campus. But school officials can expel a high school student who made an obscene speech at a student assembly. "The undoubted freedom to advocate unpopular and controversial views in schools and classrooms must be balanced against the society's countervailing interest in teaching students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior." Bethel V. Fraser (1986).

That's why University of Maryland officials can, and did, ban students from wearing "F_ _ _ Duke" T-shirts and prohibited the marching band's "you suck" number. As the court said in Bethel, "It was perfectly appropriate for the school to disassociate itself to make the point to the pupils that vulgar speech and lewd conduct is wholly inconsistent with the fundamental values of public school education." Likewise, the university wouldn't condone a naked mud wrestling contest in Comcast Center or a student flag burning ceremony in Byrd Stadium.

Other freedoms that students sacrifice when on campus include guns, smoking and hate speech. Now, add porn film fests to the list.

University autonomy

"Just because it's a state school, state legislators shouldn't be telling us what we can and cannot watch", complains a U.M. sophomore. "…Lawmakers have no business poking around in a college's daily operations," adds a Washington Post columnist.

Others say the university shouldn't have intervened because it was purely a student event paid for by $4 tickets and involving no student activity fees. Sorry, the film was on a state campus in a state taxpayer-financed theater under the university's auspices. The fact that university officials cancelled the event conclusively demonstrates that the porn film was squarely under university control.

It's true that state lawmakers have better things to do than oversee U.M.'s movie offerings, but when gutless university officials shirk their duty, state lawmakers must act. Or, as state Sen. Andy Harris put it, "the taxpayers are paying a high six-figure salary to a lot of people who are supposed to be running that campus. They need to take control of this situation…" They didn't, so the legislature did.

The porn film was a bad idea from the beginning. Why university officials didn't understand that is a mystery. But here's a window into the university's thinking. This week, in the midst of the porn film controversy, the U.M. senate voted 42 to 14 to eliminate the opening prayer from this year's graduation ceremony.

Porn, yes. Prayer, no. Welcome to the University of Maryland whose idea of a morally objectionable film is probably "The Passion of The Christ."

Blair Lee is CEO of the Lee Development Group in Silver Spring and a regular commentator for WBAL radio. His column appears Fridays in The Gazette. His e-mail address is blair@leedg.com.