Penn Law students expecting an Easter egg hunt found more than just chocolate hidden throughout the Law School last Thursday. They discovered plastic eggs filled with "insulting" and "juvenile" cartoons that mocked Jesus, according to Law School officials.
Members of the Christian Legal Society -- a group for Christian law students at Penn -- found approximately 40 plastic eggs filled with anti-Christian cartoons upon arriving at the Law School on Thursday morning. Organizers had arrived earlier with the intention of distributing their own candy-filled eggs.
The cartoons depicted Jesus making a variety of atypical comments.
"One of them was Jesus saying that his father was an asshole," CLS President Heather Gebelin said. "They were pretty offensive."
Another cartoon, Gebelin said, showed Jesus questioning his sexual orientation.
Members of the CLS had planned to hide plastic eggs as a part of their organization's Easter celebration. Students who found CLS eggs were supposed to bring them to a desk in the Law School lobby and redeem them for information about Easter services and more candy.
When the event's organizers discovered the alternative set of eggs, they delivered them to the office of Gary Clinton, the Law School's associate dean for student affairs.
"We felt like it was an effort to ruin our event," Gebelin said. "We do recognize this as free expression. ... We wish that the person had ... at least put their name on what they did."
Joe Policarpo, the Law School's associate director of facilities, called the Penn Police and handed the eggs over for further inquiry.
The case will be handled by the Law School and does not warrant a criminal investigation, according to Penn Police Deputy Chief of Investigations Bill Danks.
"What crime would we investigate?" Danks said. Those responsible "didn't steal anything; they didn't kill anybody. They expressed a point of view."
Jane Curry -- the detective who met with Policarpo -- declined to comment on the case.
The current location of the eggs is unknown.
After CLS members found the offensive eggs, Clinton sent an e-mail entitled "An Ugly Incident" to all Law students.
"I know the vast majority of you join me in my disappointment in behavior of this sort," the e-mail said. "Anonymous attacks, such as the distribution of these cartoons, are cowardly and they are juvenile."
Clinton said he knew of no suspects responsible for the eggs.
The Law School is "a family, in a sense," Clinton said. "If, in fact, you want to make a criticism of another group, it's better to do it openly and with your name attached."
