KU Sexuality Class Professor Speaks Out - Finds Experience 'Frightening, Hurtful'

thekansascitychannel.com ^

[chance33_98]

KU Sexuality Class Professor Speaks Out

Dailey Finds Experience 'Frightening, Hurtful'

POSTED: 11:15 a.m. CDT June 2, 2003 UPDATED: 11:38 a.m. CDT June 2, 2003

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- University of Kansas professor Dennis Dailey said he was hurt and frightened by a controversy that flared this semester over the human sexuality class he teaches.

Dailey said his "Human Sexuality in Everyday Life" class is designed to help his students end up in healthy relationships.

"Probably 40 to 50 percent of the students in my class are the products of failed relationships," Dailey said. "They've grown up seeing their parents quarrel over issues that are often sexual in nature."

"So when they get to my class, they listen up because their expectations are that they're likely to repeat their parents' relationships. They'd like not to do that -- I'd like them not to do that."

But Dailey spent much of last semester listening to State Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, charge that he sexually harassed female students in the class, used "street language" and showed clinical videos that would be obscene under Kansas law. She also accused Dailey of saying there is nothing wrong with pedophilia.

And after Wagle appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" to discuss the class, commentator Bill O'Reilly said Dailey was obviously a pedophile.

Wagle's accusations were based on information from her legislative intern, Jessica Zahn, a senior who took Dailey's class.

Until now, Dailey has not said much about Wagle, Zahn and the controversy surrounding the class.

Dailey explained: "My brother, who's a professional skin diver, taught me long ago: 'If the sharks are feeding, you don't go swimming."'

But that has changed, now that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius declined to veto a budget provision inserted by Wagle that ordered state universities to adopt policies on showing videos depicting sex acts, talking about pedophilia and protecting students from sexual harassment.

He's disappointed in Sebelius, who vetoed an earlier Wagle amendment that would have wiped out the School of Social Welfare's $3.1 million budget if Dailey kept showing videos that Wagle called pornographic.

But Sebelius said last month that the provision she declined to veto would have almost no effect on the university.

"She's right, the content of the proviso is zip," Dailey said. "But the symbolism is dramatic. Signing it into law gives credibility to the actions she originally took offense to. She can't have it both ways."

Not surprisingly, he's disgusted with Wagle's tactics.

"The two words I most often use to describe this experience are 'frightening' and 'hurtful,"' he said.

He said Wagle's tactics remind him of the tactics used in the 1950s by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who launched a campaign to seek out communists he said had infiltrated the U.S. government.

"The bullying, the red herrings, the whole are-you-still-beating-your-wife? approach -- that's McCarthyism," he said. "I find it truly amazing that the huge weight of evidence that's to the contrary of what she's saying has had absolutely no impact on her thinking."

A recent investigation by David Shulenburger, Kansas provost and executive vice chancellor, found Wagle's allegations "do not have merit."

Wagle responded that the investigation was a "whitewash." And she defended her actions.

"What the professor is doing is not allowed in the public workplace," Wagle said.

She also said that many people have thanked her for her efforts against the class.

"I think by raising people's awareness, I've served a good cause," she said.

Especially hurtful, Dailey said, was O'Reilly's suggestion that he was a pedophile.

"That was particularly disturbing," Dailey said. "Not only was that a gross distortion of the content covered in that particular class -- it was a conscious manipulation of the language for mean-spirited purposes. There's no way anyone can defend themselves against something like that."

Dailey, 64, joined the School of Social Welfare faculty in 1969. He's taught courses on human sexuality since 1973. Now in semi-retirement, Dailey said he will teach the course next fall, but he's undecided whether he'll teach it in the spring.

He also said he would not change the course's content or his teaching style.

"I will teach that class exactly as I always have," he said. "To do otherwise would be a betrayal to both the students and to my philosophy."

[Blue Leader]

I saw that pervert on The O'Reilley factor. He should register as a sex offender but he shouldn't be teaching and shouldn't be receiving any public funding.

[AlwaysLurking]

The School of Social Welfare??????

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

What is a publicly funded university doing teaching human sexuality to college students who usually know all they need to know on the subject? Young adults don't need a lot of formal training in matters of sex. They seem to pick it up without too much coaching.

Your daughter or son is at college. You are spending a fortune on their so-called higher education with dimming hope of their future employment in a shrinking job market. What are they teaching your kids? Human sexuality.

I'll say it again. Stop funding these socialist propaganda mills until tenure is eliminated and students can actually learn something other than leftist ideology. Starve these public colleges of money until they become learning institutions worth attending.

[fat city]

professor Dennis Dailey said he was hurt and frightened by a controversy that flared this semester over the human sexuality class he teaches.

Oh, but sado-masochism is ok?

[cavtrooper21]

Our favorite perv...
Hurt and frightened...
Awww!

[RLK]

"Probably 40 to 50 percent of the students in my class are the products of failed relationships," Dailey said. "They've grown up seeing their parents quarrel over issues that are often sexual in nature."

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I guess we've come to the point where I can no longer expect a college professor to know the issues he talks about are the result of other deeper problems in the relationship. Cp;;ege professors, who are themselves eternal teenagers compete for X playboy philosophy ratings from their teenage students. It's ridiculous to view this as education.

[cavtrooper21]

Kansas University
A refuge for the diverse(granola) in the otherwise conservitive farmlands of the middle west..
An island of granola floating in a sea of shredded wheat. This screwball is just one of the legion of freaks that inhabit Lawrence. But its still a good place to raise your kids....

[stop_fascism]

So, what's the story? I couldn't tell from this article.

[F16Fighter]

[University of Kansas professor Dennis Dailey Daily] sexually harassed female students in the class, used "street language" and showed clinical videos that would be obscene under Kansas law...

He also is accused of telling his class there is "nothing wrong with pedophilia."

In short, the guy is perve masquerading as a 'human sexuality teacher.'

[fly_so_free]

"so what's the story?"

Proffesor Perv is peeved about being perceived as a pedophille.

arghhh..I know... my apologies I need sleep... been working to much overtime.

[John Valentine]

"I will teach that class exactly as I always have," he said. "To do otherwise would be a betrayal to both the students and to my philosophy."

And he will thereby continue his betrayal of the good people of the State of Kansas, who have a right to expect their tax dollars to sund something better and more worthwhile than this filth.

[BenLurkin]

It SHOULD be closed, cuz.

[MattAMiller]

What this world really needs is more sexual harassment paranoia. It seems some conservatives are so conditioned to believe that liberals have some sort lock on credibility that they feel compelled to adopt their agenda and try to cram it into conservatism.

In all of O'Reilly's yelling about this I never really heard of anything an adult souldn't be able to handle.

[MattAMiller]

There's a reason people who go to Universisties are more sought after than people who go to technical school. A broad education tends to produce a better mind. There ought to be no feild of study off limits to a hungry mind.

I have no idea, despite having listened to O'Reilly hold forth, whether or not this particular class has any merit. But I'm not about to dismiss it out of hand.

[ChemistCat]

I had a class in Human Sexuality about ten years ago. I didn't agree with the professor's values, and I didn't much like the explicit nature of some of the course materials, but I still learned some things I didn't know about the human body and mind.

That said, if the prof I had had endorsed or glorified pedophilia or homosexuality, I would have been furious and rightly so. On such topics, my professor stuck to the facts and did not air his personal opinions.

This article doesn't present any "facts" as I see them. I do not see his students among his accusors. Maybe he did what they said he did and maybe he didn't. Pedophilia, and promoting pedophilia, is the most horrible sexual crime there is, so I am very reluctant to join a witch hunt without proof. Does this man deserve these charges? If so, the article should have presented the facts. If not, someone is bearing false witness and I won't join in on that.

[Arpege92]

The thought of having to learn about mistakes my parents had in the bedroom is just way, way too much for me to handle!

[RAT Patrol]

I understand he passes around pictures of the genitals of very young children while making sexually suggestive remarks. I don't know if that's supposed to be funny in his warped view, but I find it revolting and do not appreciate my tax dollars being used in this way.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

If O'Reilley claims someone is a pedophile, it must be true! That know-it-all is nauseating.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Dailey said his "Human Sexuality in Everyday Life" class is designed to help his students end up in healthy relationships. "Probably 40 to 50 percent of the students in my class are the products of failed relationships,"...anyone who seriously believes that the path to more mature, healthy, enduring interpersonal relationships begins with an obsessive focus on sexual behavior should be the educatee, not the educator.....