This column is hopefully, but probably not, the last in my ongoing coverage of child pornography charges on campus.
In case you were living under a rock and didn’t know, yet another employee has been arrested and charged with possessing child pornography. Prather Lee Warren, who has worked here for a quarter of a century, was arrested on Friday.
I think we would all agree that child pornography is wrong, but what really ticks this columnist off is that these people are stupid enough to indulge in their sexual misconduct at work. The internet age has made previously difficult hobbies – viewing illicit photographs and videos of minors in sexual acts comes to mind – much easier to entertain. So easy, in fact, that one could do it at home. Why then do we have deviants looking at child pornography on campus? Can they not learn from those illustrious felons who have gone before them?
No, the University not only hires pedophiles; it hires idiotic ones.
I do not mean to condone pedophilia. It is an egregious crime, one that can have severely traumatic emotional consequences for the children involved. Likewise, it is deviant behavior; the urge to engage in sexual acts with prepubescent individuals is equal, at least in my eyes, to the urge to engage in sexual acts with animals.
I would be willing to bet there are pedophile employees at most academic institutions, but it seems from news coverage this University is the one hiring the bulk of ones stupid enough to deviate from normal social behavior on computers monitored by a police department, the FBI and a whole slew of computer technicians.
It must be depressing for the LSU Flagship Agenda, one of its goals being to improve the University’s national image. Luckily, administrators should not worry about much negative publicity; the story does not even make it near the front page of local newspapers such is its national image. The University has become as synonymous with pedophilia as Auburn is with toothlessness.
It is surprising that in recent years there hasn’t been a pedophilia club, the charges have become so great. Equally surprising is that there has been very little statements, if have, to alter its hiring practices to prevent such deviants from holding employment. I certainly haven’t heard any.
While the truth or innocence of Warren is up to the court, and he ought to be afforded the rights of one who is innocent until proven guilty, this University will not be known as any specific pedophile’s hunting grounds; it will be known still as Robert Penn Warren’s, but that does not mean that some sort of stigma will not or should not be attached to it.
If there must be pedophiles at the University, as it would seem from the sheer number of them, the least the administration could do is hire ones that keep their antics limited to their home entertainment centers. Dean Welles asked us to obey the rules and, for the most part, most of us did. Obviously it was too much for him to obey the rules, the same rules Warren is accused of having allegedly broken.
With that said, I humbly ask that the employment application for the University add merely two extra questions. Question One: Are you a pedophile? Question Two: If you answered in the affirmative, can you limit your pedophiliac actions to off-campus locations? If so, you’re hired!
 
Lake is a history senior. Contact him
at [email protected]