By: Liz Farmer

Maybe a bunch of college students getting together to watch porn is not the craziest thing you ever heard of. But how about when a university hosts the event?

Saturday Hoff Theater at University of Maryland will air a midnight showing of “Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge.” School officials have said the showing offers students an alternative to late night drinking.

Here’s a description of the film from Hoff’s Web site: “Pirate hunter Captain Edward Reynolds and his blond first mate, Jules Steel, return where they are recruited by a shady governor general to find a darkly sinister Chinese empress pirate, named Xifing, and her group of Arab cutthroats, whom are trying to resurrect the late Victor Stagnetti, the world’s most feared pirate, from the grave to bring on world domination. Planned Parenthood will provide a brief introduction.”

In a radio interview this morning, Lisa Cunningham, program coordinator for Hoff, defending the theater’s choice to air the film saying it was the student committee’s unanimous choice to show the XXX-rated film. She also assured that taxpayer dollars, contrary to some protester’s beliefs, were not paying for the film. Instead, the university gets the films for free and the ticket sales cover wages and the cost of keeping the building open.

What are your thought on the choice? Is this just allowing free speech and freedom of expression at a public university? Or has the theater crossed a line?