November 5, 2007

University won’t distribute condoms in student paper
Daily Titan staff angry over change of plans for safe-sex campaign
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register

FULLERTON – A plan to have Cal State Fullerton's student newspaper, the Daily Titan, distribute free condoms in its Nov. 14 issue has been killed by campus administrators, after complaints from some students.

The student health center had arranged with the campus newspaper to place some 4,500 condoms into the upcoming issue of the paper, to encourage students to have safe sex.

A promotional campaign, alerting students to the upcoming giveaway with a poster depicting stick figures having sex, offended some and led to complaints that ultimately resulted in the decision against distributing the condoms, Dean of Students Bob Palmer said this morning.

Instead, Palmer wanted the paper to print a coupon that students could clip and take to the student center to redeem a free condom.

“If I’m picking up a paper to read it, I would not necessarily want to have a condom there,” Palmer said. “You know how newspapers are; we would probably have condoms out all over campus.”

Student journalists were angered that the student health center of the 37,000-student campus had backed off from the plan.

Executive editor Ian Hamilton said the condom plan was the brainchild of the paper’s advertising sales director, Stephanie Birditt, who approached the student health center at the beginning of the semester.

The health center agreed to provide the condoms if the newspaper would pay to promote the giveaway, Hamilton said.

“We started promoting the event about a week ago, and then they had a problem with our sign,” Hamilton said, about campus posters that showed a pair of stick figures lying together, with one on top.

“They had a complaint it was pornographic,” Hamilton said. “Soon after that, they raised other concerns and pulled out of (the giveaway). So now they are going to offer coupons in the paper.”

Hamilton said he doubts many students will use the coupons, which could be redeemed for free condoms at the student health center.

“It will just mean more students are likely to get pregnant or contract a disease because everyone will be too embarrassed or forget,” Hamilton said.

He added that the Daily Titan spent about $700 or $800 promoting the giveaway.

A Nov. 1 editorial in the paper noted that the allegedly offensive poster bore “the same stamp of approval from the Dean of Students office that every other piece of ‘free speech’ on campus has.”

Palmer said he’s not opposed to giving away condoms as part of a safe sex campaign. “Just not in the newspaper,” he said.