UCSD administrators said earlier this week that they are disappointed by the outcome and will not change the decision to ban graphic sex, including nudity, from the Student-Run Television Station aired on campus cable and a campus website.
Sixteen percent of undergraduates participated in the 1,708-1,446 vote, taken over last week via the Internet.
“It wasn't a landslide,” Gary Ratcliff, acting assistant vice chancellor, said. “Our view is the majority of students support the values of the university and they don't believe the [campus cable network] should be a forum for airing pornographic material.”
He added that allowing students to decide what to show on SRTV was akin to students voting on how much the university ought to pay faculty.
Ratcliff's perspective, however, conflicts with that of UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.
“We're not taking a position on content,” Fox said Monday. “We've never said we're controlling content.”
Some students have interpreted the results differently from the administration, calling the outcome a strong mandate and threatening to take legal action if the university doesn't abide by the majority vote.
“The students spoke, as far as I'm concerned,” Steve York, a former UCSD student who instigated much of the controversy on his racy show, “Koala TV,” said. York said he will see the issue to its end, even though he completed his course work last quarter.
For nearly a year, administrators and student leaders have struggled over how to deal with controversial broadcasts on SRTV, which can be viewed on closed-circuit television by nearly 8,000 students living on campus.
Beginning last February, “Koala TV” featured intermittent episodes of pornographic material. A particularly controversial episode aired in October, in which York, 22, engaged in sex with a paid adult film actress posing as a UCSD student.
For months, the university took a hands-off approach and allowed the student government to deal with the situation. Student leaders voted to ban sex from the station, and then reversed their votes twice, ultimately leading York and students to gather signatures for a special election.
