Penn's President's Guests: Suicide Bomber not the Only Outrage

(Cross-posted at Campus Watch)

A bit of research turns up this Wednesday article from the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student paper at the University of Pennsylvania.

It reveals two pieces of information that those of you following this story may find interesting. The first is that Saad Saadi's costume was mentioned yesterday morning, before I broke the story of Penn president Amy Gutmann's stunning photograph with Saadi dressed as a suicide bomber. But no photo accompanied the story, and within the Penn community, no one objected--at least not sufficiently to draw any attention to the story.

Engineering senior Saad Saadi came dressed as a suicide bomber, or, as he alternately titled the costume, a "freedom martyr."

Secondly, Saadi wasn't the only person there sporting a costume that most people would consider utterly inappropriate, even vulgar:

Some more infamous figures were also in attendance.

There was, for instance, an impersonator of Scott Ward, the ex-Wharton professor who is awaiting trial for importing child pornography earlier this year. The costume was complete with a fake boy whose head was at the level of the impersonator's crotch.

Pedophiles, suicide bombers--that was some party, eh? This further illustrates the "anything goes" atmosphere that prevailed at the president's house Tuesday night. No boundaries, no adult supervision, and, apparently, no sense of shame.

I'd asked earlier at Campus Watch what the reaction would have been if anyone had shown up costumed as a rapist. I have a feeling we now know: there would have been no reaction. Until outside pressure was applied via this blog and some news organizations that picked up the story, nothing happened.

Kudos to the three major networks' Philadelphia affiliates, all of whom covered the story in their local evening broadcasts this evening. KYW, the CBS affiliate, even sent a reporter to Penn's campus to check out local reaction.

Earlier posts: breaking the story; morning developments with afternoon updates.

See also posts at Campus Watch, of which I'm director and to which the original photos were sent. The first post, with photos; this post contains an essay with a more philosophical bent.