The controversy about Kansas University Professor Dennis Dailey’s sexuality class continues in cyberspace.

Dailey supporters and critics alike have launched Web sites aimed at making sure their views are known.

The site posted by a group calling itself Opposition to Publicly-Funded Porn includes an altered photograph of KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway wearing a Hitler-esque mustache.

“Well, I guess this shows the First Amendment is alive and well,” Hemenway said Tuesday.

Hemenway defended Dailey’s classroom performance and the principles of academic freedom during this year’s commencement ceremony.

The opposition site — http://opp32.tripod.com — does not identify its officers or backers and includes neither an address nor a telephone number. Instead, visitors are invited to e-mail inquires or expressions of support to oppforks@yahoo.com.

The group did not respond to an e-mail sent Tuesday by the Journal-World.

State government involved

But earlier e-mails sent by oppforks@yahoo.com to Reader Reaction, the newspaper’s message board, were found to have come from a block of addresses –referred to as an Internet Protocol or IP address — for state government.

“The IP address that was posted to Reader Reaction is coming from an IP address that belongs to the State of Kansas,” said Frank Wiles, an Internet systems administrator at the Journal-World.

Wiles said he had no way of knowing which state employee sent the messages or from which computer they were sent.

“That’s something the state would have to do,” he said.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius intends to find out if or which state employee sent the e-mails in support of the opposition group, apparently on state time from a state computer.

“If that is taking place, it’s completely inappropriate –that’s just awful,” Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran-Basso said.

Corcoran-Basso said the Department of Administration would be asked to investigate.

“Once we find out what’s going on, appropriate action will be taken,” she said.

‘Lowest common denominator’

The opposition Web site includes a “Proof of Allegations Against Dailey” link that displays copies of letters distributed on the floor of the Kansas Senate by Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, during debate on a Wagle-introduced proviso aimed at forcing KU to set standards for showing explicit videos, discussing pedophilia and — in her words — sexually harassing students.

Wagle said she didn’t know much about the opposition group or its Web site.

“I’ve heard about it — I saw it in the Journal-World’s Reader Reaction thing,” she said. “But I’ve not looked at it. I don’t know anything about it.”

The first page of the “Proof of Allegations Against Dailey” link shows a fax cover sheet from Wagle’s private office in Wichita to a “Robin and Megan.”

¢ 6News video: Dailey critics start new websiteWeb sites:¢ Opposition to Publicly-funded Pornography Web site¢ Waglelies.com Web siteRecent stories:¢ Adversaries in sex class controversy speak out (6-1-03)¢ Wichita senator not afraid of controversy (6-1-03)¢ More stories and video reports

Wagle said she had, in fact, sent copies of the letters to Raubin Pierce and Megan Mosack, who are hosts of an afternoon talk show on Topeka radio station WIBW, prior to her appearing on their show.

Pierce, a Libertarian, said neither he nor Mosack forwarded the material to the opposition group.

“I put the letters on (WIBW’s) Web site,” Pierce said. “If somebody’s linking to them — that’s OK; that’s fine with me, but they’ve not contacted me. I don’t know anything about it.”

Pierce said he was no more troubled by the opposition Web site than he was by the site — www.waglelies.com –launched by three student’s from Dailey’s class.

“I think what we’re looking at is a debate that’s reached the lowest common denominator,” Pierce said.

But the students behind waglelies.com — Jen Hein, Rick Sullivan and Paul VanCleave — defended their site.

“All we did was put it out there so if anyone wanted to hear what the students who were actually in the class were saying, it would be there,” said VanCleave, 38, a sociology major from Tonganoxie.

Generally, the site is a posting of supportive e-mails from students who were in Dailey’s class last semester.

“Every one of them is signed,” VanCleave said. “Doesn’t that tell you something? Doesn’t it make you wonder why we’ve all been so public in wanting the truth to come out and the other side is throwing rocks from the shadows?

“At some point, you’ve got to question their integrity,” he said.

Dailey said he wasn’t surprised by the opposition Web site.

“What can I say? We’re in the sewer now,” Dailey said. “It’s so sad that we’ve come to this — Hemenway as Hitler, that’s scurrilous.”