Seattle- An adult Web site run by two University of Washington graduates touts nude women posed in sexually explicit scenes apparently photographed and videotaped on the Seattle campus.

The site, DormAngels, offers photos and videos that range in content from seminude to nude to explicit acts. It has posted 70 images that appear to have been shot at UW’s Suzzallo Library and 20 others apparently photographed at the university Quad.

The two former UW students who run the site insist no photos are actually taken on campus.

Despite the locations, university officials say they haven’t viewed the site and don’t intend to, because the First Amendment limits what they could do about the photos.

That approach doesn’t reassure state legislators who oversee higher education in the state.

“I don’t know the full story, but any time a public facility is used for such an activity, it should be their concern and their problem,” Rep. Phyllis Kenney (D-Seattle), chairwoman of the House Higher Education Committee, said of UW officials.

It also differs from how other universities have dealt with similar situations. They’ve reprimanded, suspended or even expelled students, as well as launched their lawyers or called in the police.

The DormAngels Web site doesn’t hide its use of UW buildings or locales.

“We’re really sorry these pictures didn’t turn out better, but we couldn’t use the flash because we really didn’t want to get caught by the UW police,” reads the text accompanying a series of photos apparently shot in Suzzallo Library. The photos are on a site advertising Dorm-Angels’ content for sale to other adult sites.

Another image shows a wide view of a row of books with no model in the frame. The distinctive stone sculpted walls of Seig Hall are visible through the window.

“For those of you who don’t attend UW, I took this picture just to prove that this is DEFINITELY inside one of our libraries,” states the caption. “For the rest of you, did you ever think you would see somebody stripping in the stacks of Suzzallo?”

University officials have not viewed the site and do not intend to, said Executive Vice President Norm Arkans. Despite the site’s claims, he said, administrators suspect the photos have been faked, and, even if they aren’t, the university has no right to violate anyone’s First Amendment rights of free expression. In addition, the school has no evidence that UW students broke the law or violated the student code of conduct, which doesn’t address public indecency.

Vice President of Student Affairs Ernest Morris said shoots set in private dorm rooms would not be the university’s concern.

“Frankly, if individual adults are allowing themselves to be photographed in any manner that’s their business,” Morris said. “There’s little or nothing the school should do.”

As for the name of the UW being used on the site, and claims that some shoots happened in dorm rooms, Morris said, “These people can say almost anything.” Still, Arkans said he intended to ask the university’s lawyers to check the site for trademark violations.

Legislative leaders said the university should check into Dorm-Angels.

“I don’t want to micromanage the university, so I can’t say whether they are handling it well, although I don’t care much for his answer,” Sen. Don Carlson (R-Vancouver), chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee, said of Morris.

Carlson, along with Kenney of the House Higher Education Committee, noted that photographs can be altered, so it’s not certain where the DormAngels pictures and videos were shot.

However, “I think the University of Washington should take some action, Carlson said. “They ought to find out.”

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle), a member of the Senate Higher Education Committee and a UW professor, said she expects the administration to investigate any porn sites that claim a connection to the school.

“It does concern me,” she said. “I’m surprised there hasn’t been anyone checking it out.”

Other schools crack down

Other universities in similar situations have examined cases of porn on campus and some have acted against those involved.

Two years ago, Indiana University kicked out two male students after they let a film crew shoot a porn movie in their dorm room. The school also set their lawyers on the company and made it delete video filmed on campus from the final cut.

Since then IU has conducted two investigations and asked Bloomington, Ind., police to investigate possible associations between the school and Internet porn. One case involved a site run by DormAngels that since December has attracted about 800 memberships costing $20 a month.

A student at Arizona State University – the student body vice president – was reprimanded by the school for appearing in a porn video shot in a dorm in 2001. Among other sanctions, he was barred from holding a position in any student organization and was banned from living or working on campus.

Baylor University, a private Baptist college, is stricter. Administrators suspended a fraternity and expelled a female student for taking part in off-campus photo shoots that appeared in Playboy’s annual “Girls on Campus” issue in 2002.

The annual publication is left alone by most institutions.

“The object of this feature in the magazine was to showcase students at the Big 12 institutions, thereby bringing to their presentation the Baylor name and image,” said Eileen Hulme, vice president of student life at Baylor. “We could not allow that to happen without consequences.”

Playboy has pictured UW students, along with women from other Pac-10 schools, three times in their “Girls on Campus” series, most recently in 1999. The magazine uses names and symbols of schools in photos taken off campus.

UW officials have not acted against any students in the photos.

Harvard University and Vassar College allow student magazines to picture students in the nude. At Harvard, magazines are not permitted to take nude pictures on campus.

Vassar, however, lets students decide where they want to take pictures, a spokesman said.

DormAngels was started three years ago by two then-UW juniors who used their Internet know-how and savings to start a $30-a-month subscription Web site. Brett Jennings, a 2002 graduate of the UW business school, partnered with fellow student Jeff, a communications graduate who declined to give his last name.

Jennings, who speaks for the partnership, said UW students but no UW locations were used in the still photo and video shoots. “We definitely love to tout that they’re from UW,” Jennings said of the models, whom the site, in advertisements and links on the Web, promotes as being students from the school. “We’re proud of that fact.”

While most of the nearly 50 women on the site are billed as being UW students, others are associated with other schools, including Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Montana State, UCLA, Arizona State and Western Washington, along with several local community colleges.

Jennings insists the site avoids using representations of the UW campus in pictures.

But in addition to photos taken at the library and in the Quad, DormAngels has posted other photos it associates with UW.

In one series, a young woman poses in a generic cheerleading outfit trimmed with purple and gold, the school colors.

In another set, a Husky banner hangs on a wall behind a nude woman. Several photos are billed as being shot in UW dorm rooms.

Photos advertised on the Web site as being on campus were taken in the state but not at the UW, Jennings said. The “dorm” rooms, he said, are sets. Jennings said he would shoot in dorm rooms if possible, to make more authentic photos.

Morris, the UW vice president, said administrators know nothing more about DormAngels than what was published in a March 9 story in the UW student newspaper, The Daily, under the headline, “How to Be a Pornographer.”

Reporter James Sutter of The Daily said his story wasn’t a revelation to many on campus.

“I think pretty much everybody knew about it,” he said.

DormAngels has solicited models in the school paper’s classifieds since 2001.

Jennings said word of the site had spread to at least one woman who later was photographed in a setting described as a dorm room.

“I found Elizabeth one day walking to class,” he writes on the Web site. “I guess we’ve started to get a reputation on campus because she knew who I was. (She said) ‘You run that DormAngels site, right? Well, I wanna pose.'”

Dorm Angels was inspired by “Busty Amateurs,” one of a handful of Internet ventures that in the mid-1990s pioneered reality porn, which enjoys “rampant popularity,” in the words of one industry writer.

When “Busty Amateurs” folded four years ago, Jennings said he saw an opportunity after watching the rise of reality porn while he worked for a few years at an adult site in Seattle.

Jennings and Jeff said they envisioned a site that took advantage of what they thought of as a sea of unique content – the 13,000 female students of the University of Washington.

Jennings won’t say how much money DormAngels makes. The 3-year-old business claims 8,500 visits a day and has spawned four spinoff sites.

Industry writer Brandon Palmer said DormAngels is on the Internet map.

“They are not new to the industry,” Palmer said. “They have been around for a while and have a good following.”

The site pays women from $50 for posing seminude to $150 for performing explicit erotic scenes in videos.

When they started the site, the partners said they believed they and the women would remain anonymous within the universe of the Web.

“It took us three shoots to realize we were naïve in that respect,” Jennings said. “Now we tell everyone there’s a chance” they’ll be found out by someone they know.

In one case, Jennings said, someone recognized two UW students, printed out their photos and posted them in the halls of their dorm.

The incident is described in a section of the site entitled “Drama,” which chronicles social problems experienced by girls discovered on the site by peers and relatives.

At first the company pulled photos and videos when asked to by models. Now the pictures stay up.

“It’s kind of a tough-luck situation,” Jennings said.

To promote the business and make professional contacts, Jennings attends conventions of adult Web site owners (most recently in Cancun, Mexico) and regularly hosts get-togethers for area porn site proprietors.

Jennings said the get-togethers are perks of a job that mostly consists of routine small-business chores – paying taxes, making payroll, maintaining licenses, and such.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “It’s a great life. There’s no doubting that.”