College retracted public’s invitation to porn star’s speech after controversy

Pasadena City College (PCC) officials retracted the public’s invitation to an on-campus speech by adult film superstar James Deen after a news report drew unwanted attention to the school.  

A community college retracted the public’s invitation to an on campus lecture by porn star James Deen, after his appearance stirred controversy.

PCC professor Hugo Schwyzer initially invited the porn superstar star to give a guest lecture to the public as part of the school’s “Navigating Pornography” class.

But, shortly after the event was announced, administrators informed Schwyzer the lecture must be “closed to the public and press” due to an alleged paperwork snafu.

“Pasadena City College administrators met with instructor Hugo Schwyzer today and came to agreement to move an unauthorized scheduled public event that featured a male actor in the pornography industry,” PCC said in a press release last Wednesday.

“There will be no public event at PCC on Feb. 27,” it added. “[T]he lecture will be closed to the public and press.”

Schwyzer, however, was dissatisfied with the ruling and took to his blog to offer an alternate view of how the event became closed to the public.

“The statement says that we reached an agreement to move the event to a closed classroom,” he wrote in a blog post. “I want to make clear that there were no negotiations; I was simply told that the public event was off.”

“This was a decision unilaterally imposed rather than negotiated,” he added.

Schwyzer also contested the allegation he had failed to file the appropriate paperwork for the event.

“[I] had pulled a valid activity permit with the Associated Students (the exact same permit I acquired for speakers like Rubin and Kuehl, etc), the college legal counsel and vice-president for academic affairs overrode that authorization,” he wrote.

The school later called the lecture “uneventful” in an update, adding that a few members of the media were permitted to observe the lecture with the 35 students enrolled in the class.

A spokesperson for the school also failed to respond to inquiries made by Campus Reform for comment.

Schwyzer said in another blog post last Thursday he plans to continue inviting porn stars to deliver guest lectures to his students.

“I look forward to welcoming more stars of adult entertainment to class, such as Jessica Drake and Kelly Shibari,” he wrote. “I’m also bringing in Charlie Glickman, sex educator and activist.”

Schwyzer also said Deen, the star of over 1,000 adult films, was invited to deliver the lecture because he is “widely recognized as one of the college’s most famous alumni.”

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