Explicit photos found on U. Miss Website

OXFORD, Miss. (U-WIRE) - Four photographs featuring a pair of nude female strippers with as many as eight fully-clothed males were posted on the Delta Kappa Epsilon page of the University of Mississippi Website.

The university's M-Book explicitly states that students "may not possess, willingly receive or distribute obscene material" on the university's network system. The M-Book is the university's handbook of standards and activities.

According to the M-Book, anyone who violates the policy could have his or her computer equipment impounded and may also face other disciplinary actions including possible suspension or expulsion from the university. At least four of the males pictured in the photographs are wearing Delta Kappa Epsilon T-shirts.

In one of the photographs a stripper appears to be performing a sex act with one of the males while he has a dollar bill in his mouth. The other three photographs depict the males and the strippers touching each other. The breast and groin areas of the strippers are blacked out in all of the photographs.

"Something like that is totally against policy," said Thomas Wallace, interim vice chancellor for student life. Wallace said the university was to begin investigating the photographs yesterday.

Wallace said he contacted Kathy Gates, director of academic computing and support services, and asked her to inspect the Website Tuesday night.

According to Wallace, Gates shut down the Website around 10:15 p.m. Tuesday so that outside parties could not view or alter the site. A web counter on the site had recorded over 2,000 hits before Gates shut down the site.

Scott Burton, social chair of the fraternity, said the photographs were "taken at an off-campus party about the second week of school" and that the females were "hired entertainers from Jackson."

"There were no sexual acts performed," said Burton, who also said that he was responsible for arranging the party.

Burton said the party was held in a hotel banquet hall and that the hotel was not in Oxford. According to Burton, all of the males in the photographs were fraternity members except for one security guard, whose face was blacked out.

"This is a bunch of guys at a party, nothing more, nothing less," said George Wade, president of the Ole Miss chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. "I don't feel I need to defend these pictures."

Both Burton and Wade said that no illegal activities took place at the party, and they did not know posting the photographs violated university policy.

The national Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity was chartered in 1844, and the Ole Miss chapter was founded in 1850. The chapter was kicked off campus in 1985 for a hazing incident, and this semester is its first semester back on campus since the incident.

- Additional reporting by Blake Aued.

10-21-99