The University of Nebraska has dismissed two wrestlers, including one who won an NCAA championship in 2007, after they posed naked for videos and photographs on an Internet pornography site Fratmentv.com, which caters to gay men.

Paul Donahoe and Kenny Jordan did not reveal their real identities or identify with the University of Nebraska on the site. But a blogger identified the two wrestlers as University of Nebraska athletes, which prompted university officials to dismiss them from the team.

Assistant athletic director for compliance Josh White said the university declared Donahoe and Jordan ineligible because they violated an NCAA rule that prohibits athletes from appearing in pictures for commercial use.

Although both wrestlers apologized for the matter, the University’s actions violated their First Amendment rights.

Students at both public and private universities are perfectly within their rights to pose and model nude. For example, you might recall a case I reported years ago involving a female student at Cal State Fullerton who lost her spot on a sports team because she was an exotic dancer. The University later reinstated her and conceded the dismissal violated her rights because her off-campus work had nothing to do with her status as a member of the team.

University counsel admitted at the time that the First Amendment protected the student’s work as an adult entertainer, and that her work could not violate any lawful policy of the university or the NCAA.

That should have been the result at the University of Nebraska. However, given that the men posed for a gay Web site, university officials cited the NCAA rule as cause to dismiss the students, even though the rule simply prohibits student athletes from receiving money in association with a team. Had the wrestlers identified themselves as University of Nebraska wrestlers or used the NCAA or Nebraska trademarks, then, of course, the NCAA rule would apply. But, in this instance, the University of Nebraska is using the NCAA as a pretext for a First Amendment violation.

Coincidentally, last week, Penn State’s student newspaper reported a similar incident, to which officials reacted quite differently. The incident involved University basketball player Stanley Pringle, a guard for the Nittany Lions, who faced charges of open lewdness and disorderly conduct in connection to having masturbated in the campus library while asking a female patron if she wanted to purchase hand lotion.

The female victim told police that, last March, Pringle sat behind her in the stacks section, attempted to start a conversation and then began masturbating. He asked if she wanted to purchase some hand lotion he was selling for the basketball team. She told police she heard a “smacking sound,” like Pringle’s hand was smacking against the skin of his body, and said he then began making moaning sounds after answering his cell phone.

Even after Pringle pled guilty and received probation, neither the basketball team nor the NCAA found grounds to suspend him from the team.

Comparing the University of Nebraska incident with what occurred at Penn State, it’s obvious, although not surprising, that double standards abound in the world of college athletics and that the university not only violated the wrestlers’ rights to free speech but also persecuted them on the basis of perceived sexual orientation.