According to the Broadside at George Mason University, theats have been made to cut funding to the school if university departments provided funding for tonight's scheduled Sex Workers' Art Show:

[Student Organizer Whitney] Gecker went to a few of the campus offices for help. The Women's Studies Research & Resource Center and Student Health Services were originally planning on helping sponsor the Mason event, but had to change their plans this past week when they heard word of potential consequences that might occur if a campus office helped financially support the event. According to an e-mail sent out by Gecker, this consequence could be the potential cutting of funding from the state to Mason.

"It's hard to figure out how we support the students who want to do it, without incurring perhaps broad-reaching, unintended on our part, consequences," Dr. Nancy Hanrahan, the Director of the Women's Studies program said. "The best thing to do is what other universities have done. The event has gone through as a student event."

The Women's Center is only providing emotional support at this point, without any funding or backing for the event.  "We have been legally advised, and I think I have to honor that, that this should be a student event," Hanrahan said. "The message came across to us pretty clearly that this might have consequences far beyond what we might intend. And we needed to be mindful of that."

As I noted in an earlier piece, the SWAS is certainly a provocative program that has already generated heated campus discussions.  It's certainly not to everyone's taste, but it certainly has a role in the free exchange of ideas.  However, what is occurring at GMU goes well beyond heated discussion and into the realm of political harassment.  Making threats to cut off funding because a school is offering programming that some find objectionable is completely contrary to academic freedom and free speech on campus and represents a very real and grave incursion of politics into higher education.

The question becomes, "Where did this particular threat originate?"  We've already had one legislator trying to intimidate SWAS organizers, participants, and attendees at W&M by asking law enforcement to monitor the show there.  Do we now have another legislator or other authority relaying funding threats to GMU?  Is this how the Commonwealth will "ensure academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas" as proposed in HB 118?  We need answers to these questions, because to me, having politicians getting involved with campus curriculum and programming decisions - as seen at both W&M and now GMU - looks like an unacceptable obstacle to having a genuine free exchange of ideas.

For those keeping score at home, the College of William and Mary hosted a "censored" version of the SWAS last night - weathering all of the tactics to prevent the show from happening, including intervention by the Commonwealth's Attorney General.  Perhaps a student's take on the show would be appropriate:

Sophomore Janelle Ramus-Jones said she didn't know what to expect when she walked into the auditorium. She downplayed media coverage of the event as "ridiculous[...]"

Ridiculous and dangerous to open academic dialogue.