The student programming committee at the University of Maryland- College Park planned on showing the XXX-rated film, Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge this weekend. When state legislators got word of this, they didn’t exactly approve.

Senators debated “the evils of pornography” and the First Amendment for much of the morning, The Sun reported. “That’s really not what Maryland residents send their young students to college campus for, to view pornography,” said the Senate’s president, Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., a Democrat. Another legislator suggested amending the state’s budget to deny funds to any public college that showed a XXX movie.

The film, a Pirates of the Caribbean knockoff, is the sequel to the popular porn Pirates, released in 2005. The film is one of the first pornographic flicks to be released in Blu-ray.

Pirates II, released in 2008, cost $10-million to make — an industry record. Its marketing slogan was “Proceed at Yer Own Risk.”

Following “behind the scenes” negotiations between state officials and the university, College Park’s president, C.D. Mote Jr., decided to cancel the movie, according to The Sun.

I am not sure why the programming committee wanted to show this film in the first place, but the Maryland Legislature overstepped its bounds.

Updated: This situation has numerous implications for college campuses like Penn State. If the State Legislature doesn’t like something the college is doing, can it just threaten to take away funding? Won’t that hamstring the academic freedom that campuses like Penn State are supposed to be a safe haven for? I would like to think that if SPA wanted to show a porno, the legislators down in Harrisburg wouldn’t care, but I may be wrong. Maybe they should take a page out of the UMD book and try to show one and see what controversy ensues?

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