Escort service advertises on campus

This week flyers advertising the Hot Date Escort Service agency were posted around the University of Miami Coral Gables campus, including at the Whitten Learning Center and the apartment area.
Enclosed in glass-cased bulletin boards accessible only by lock and key, these ads were stapled to cork bulletin boards behind the locked glass, next to all the other more generic advertisements relevant to student life, such as those announcing MCAT and GMAT tutoring classes, used books sales, or students looking for roommates.
The flyers advertised job opportunities for “female college students interested in making serious money” offering “top pay, flexible hours, cash daily, [and a] choice of your transportation or ours.”
Any interested party was told to call the phone number provided for a confidential interview.
The Hurricane asked UM freshman Laura Levitan to call the number.
Upon doing so, she was informed by a man who called himself Dennis, that the Hot Date Escort Service is looking for girls who are willing to meet with their customers at hotels in Miami.
The mentioned hotels included the Marriott and Hilton, Levitan said.
Would-be escorts must be willing to do “lap dances, role-playing, [and] be a sexual friend,” Levitan said she was told.
The service’s employees can make between $100 and $300 per hour “depending on their level of experience,” Levitan was informed.
Administrators at the office of the Dean of Students said flyers must be approved before they are tacked on to bulleting boards.
“All flyers that are put up around campus must first be screened before they can be put up,” said senior secretary to the Dean of Students, Rose Marie Slusser.
“Certainly the University of Miami as a character-building organization we would not want an escort service to be advertised on campus,” said Dr. Pat Whitely, Vice President for Student Affairs.
The administration said it did not know who posted the ads.
“I have no idea [how these flyers were placed in the boards]. Sometimes people break into the cases and put their own flyers up,” said Mary Ortiz, senior staff assistant at the University Center. Ortiz is in charge of screening flyers that are placed in the Bowman Foster Ashe Building, at the UC and the Breezeway.
“I reject any flyers that are not proper, not decent,” Ortiz said.
“Flyers can only be submitted by students,” Slusser said.
At press time, none of the administrators contacted for this article said they did not know who had jurisdiction over the bulletin boards at the Learning Center.
“I will look into it,” Whitely said. “At my level of power I can do something about this.”