Officials at California State University's Northridge campus see no difference between their "World Pornography Conference" and symposiums they have sponsored on earthquakes or ethics.
But some state lawmakers and anti-pornography activists see a world of difference. The Legislature this week ordered an audit to determine whether the university's Center for Sex Research spent taxpayer money on an August 1998 conference they say was intended to promote pornography.
Technically, that audit will only be about money. But money is not the primary concern of either side in this dispute.
Dennis Jarrard, who attended the conference to write an article about it for Morality in Media's magazine, described the academic trappings as a phony front for a trade show promoting pornography.
None of the participants found any link between pornography and deviant behavior such as sexual abuse or exploitation of women and children, he said.
"It's comparable to the Tobacco Institute, which used to fund research in universities, and they never found a link between cancer and smoking," said Jarrard, who wrote an article comparing his time at the event to "a day in hell."
Another critic of the conference was Tonya Flynt-Vega, estranged daughter of Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who held a news conference while it was taking place last summer to denounce pornography as "an abomination" that is dangerous to women and children.
University spokesman John Chandler calls the conference "a legitimate academic endeavor."
Its full title was "World Pornography Conference: Eroticism and the First Amendment," and participants included representatives of many academic fields, legal experts, the media and the "adult entertainment" industry, Chandler noted.
"The fact that there was an academic study of pornography does not mean that anyone is endorsing or promoting pornography," Chandler said.
The university has centers on a range of topics, including earthquake studies, real estate, disabilities, ethics and values and sexual research, he said.
"They are all frameworks for faculty members to facilitate research in their fields of study," Chandler said.
Sen. Ray Haynes led the legislative effort to order an audit of the conference. The audit is "a necessary preliminary to doing anything else," the Riverside Republican said.
"The university says they had nothing to do with it. But it was on their Web site, they sent out a press release on university letterhead, the (registration) money was sent to their campus, so they did something with state funds," Haynes said. "And they certainly used the name and prestige of the university."
Haynes hopes the audit will prove all that. Then he hopes to ban such conferences.
"I think we can craft something to deal with the problem and still protect academic freedom," he said.
Chandler said the audit will show no university or taxpayer dollars were used to put on the conference, which was financed by registration fees of about 600 participants, and that it was held at a hotel, not on university property.
He said that once the audit clears any question about that gathering, he expects the center will hold conferences on other sexual topics.
"I don't think there will be any change in direction," Chandler said. "The topic is one that just creates sensitivity, and that's something we're just going to have to deal with."