Soon after the speaker's appearance, editors of The Carrollton Record, who describe themselves as "conservatives and proud of it" on their Web site, responded with a report by executive editor Jered Ede titled "Deepthroating Hopkins: How your tuition hike pays for gay porn."

According to news reports and firsthand accounts of students, large numbers of copies of the Record (which is free) were stolen from distribution areas around campus. Just two weeks ago, the paper's table at the school's freshman recruiting fair was "stormed" by students who were attempting to destroy copies of the controversial issue, according to Ede. The university also temporarily banned the Record from distributing in residence halls, a privilege typically allowed all other papers approved by the Student Activities Commission.

Responsible in large part for the backlash against the Record is the personal nature of the controversial cover of the May 2006 issue, which included Facebook photographs of more than a dozen Johns Hopkins students. All of the students had either identified themselves as members of the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance or had made comments in support of it, said senior Matthew Viator, director of administration for the alliance. The snapshots were arranged in a grid pattern around a central photo of the speaker, LaRue, who was dressed in drag, and were called "The DSAGA Bunch." An image of the cover, as well as the full report, was available on the Record's Web site.

The campus has been divided over the issue ever since, with those sympathetic to DSAGA (pronounced: "d'sah-ga") taking offense and others crying censorship. Viator and Ede have both gone to the presses - Viator penned a Sept. 21 column called "A Record of Hostility" in the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, a weekly student paper on campus, while Ede has dedicated the Record's September issue, which was published this past weekend, entirely to the conflict.

Viator said he and other DSAGA members are considering legal action against Ede or against Facebook.

In a phone interview with The Herald yesterday, Viator challenged the essential accusation of Ede's report: that university money was used "for gay porn."

"Chi Chi LaRue came to speak of the rise and curtailing of the AIDS crisis during the late 80s, early 90s, and the advent of safe sexual practices. That's what he was brought here to speak about, and that's what he spoke about," Viator said.

"In spite of being a porn director," Viator said, "(he) is one of the most prolific AIDS philanthropists in the country. He is extremely historically important to the conversation in the gay community about AIDS and about actually having protected sex."

In "Deepthroating Hopkins," Ede, who attended the event himself, characterized it as "a veritable meeting of 'Pornographers Anonymous,'" at which, he reported, X-rated material was "given freely to all who requested."

But Viator said the free pornography was not mentioned in the contract that brought LaRue to campus and therefore none of the university money spent by DSAGA can be said to have paid for it.

Ede wrote in his report that there was "considerable student unrest" regarding the expense of bringing a pornography director to campus.

Viator, however, said the fee required to bring LaRue to campus was insignificant.

"My organization is close to 100 members strong. That's 100 times $40,000, about $4 million," Viator said. "The cost of bringing Chi Chi to campus is a drop in the bucket compared to what we contribute. Like removing a grain of sand from a beach. It's really quite inconsequential."

In an interview with The Herald, Ede expressed anger and frustration about the university's distribution ban as well as the fact that he believes his paper continues to be stolen or destroyed.

"After the incident," he said, "Johns Hopkins was so threatened that they abridged freedom of speech by banning The Carrollton Record in the residence halls, where half of our staff lives, and where half of undergraduates live."

Ede said the university's new policy regarding the distribution of student publications - which has allowed distribution of all papers approved by the Student Activities Commission, including the Record, at a list of approved locations since the beginning of the semester - is not tantamount to an official repeal of the ban of his paper, which he said was "never overturned." He said no administrator ever explicitly told him that the Record could be distributed in residence halls again.

"Things are really squishy right now," he said.

Regarding the distribution of the Record this past weekend, Ede said, "I wouldn't say (it went) without incident."

"We distributed 1,500, there are 200 that are left," he said. "We suspect that half of those missing were stolen. We are still investigating."

Ede said the Record has multiple witness accounts of students stealing papers from distribution stacks, adding that it is DSAGA members who are primarily responsible for the continued thefts.

Viator said yesterday that it was "people not even affiliated with my organization" who were destroying stacks of papers. He also said one of his first actions after the publication of the Record in May was to sit down with DSAGA members and urge against that kind of retaliation.

"If it's true that Matthew did do that, then I applaud him," Ede said. "However, I would say that that effort failed."

"Prominent DSAGA members," he said, were among those who stormed the Record's table at the recruitment fair earlier this month.

The threat of legal action over the controversy remains. Viator said yesterday that he and others are "deliberating" what to do and have consulted with a lawyer.

"What we would prefer to do is sue Facebook with a stipulation clause," Viator said. "'We will drop all legal action if you engage in legal action against Jered Ede for violating the proprietary rights of Facebook.com.'"

Ede said yesterday that he believed he had not violated Facebook's terms of service, which, according to the popular social networking Web site, include the stipulation that "No content may be modified, copied, distributed, framed, reproduced, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted, transmitted, or sold in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, without the Company's prior written permission."

"The Facebook terms of service are extremely ambiguous," Ede said. "We felt that we were within them."

The university's response to the situation has been ambivalent.

Recently, a student who had filed a harassment complaint with the university's director of compliance was asked to withdraw it, and did, according to a Sept. 14 item in the News-Letter.

In a phone interview with The Herald yesterday, the student, who wished to remain anonymous, said the university asked him to drop his complaint because the upper administration had decided that it would not be able to find in his favor.

"She (the director of compliance) told me that her hands were tied," the student said, "and that it would give them (the Record editors) a sense of vindication that she didn't think would be appropriate. And I agreed."

Ede, as the director of compliance predicted, took the news that the student's complaint had been dropped as vindication.

"We didn't harass anyone," he said. "It's as simple as that."

Both Viator and Ede expressed disappointment with the university's overall response.

"I would have liked them to take a principled stand," Viator said. "And it's not on my principles, it's their own. Instead, they caved to political pressure, and there's no honor in that."

Ede disagreed.

"They took a principled stand, just for the wrong principles," he said. "They took a stand defending censorship, and defending an inappropriate policy.

Phone calls to two different administrators with the offices of the dean of students and residential life were not returned yesterday.

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