At 10:30pm on Tuesday night, a group of approximately 20 or 30 students left the steps of Dalhgren Chapel strewn with trash that included dozens of small paper cups filled with unidentifiable liquids, both open and closed condom packs, a bottle of liquor, and condoms wrapped around bananas.

Students studying in Maguire Hall with the windows open heard the group approach Dahlgren Quad. “I think we heard the phrase ‘whoever gets the most condoms from one end of the quad to the other in their basket wins,’” Ron Boehmer (COL ’12) said.  ”People just started running, looking for condoms, and took them over to the chapel.”

According to Boehmer, a DPS officer came out of Healy Hall in response to the loud commotion, prompting the students to run away immediately. The officer walked away after the students left, not noticing the mess in front of the Chapel.

Boehmer mentioned that the group seemed like upperclassmen, but could not identify any of the students. “It was more like an initiation-type thing, it didn’t seem like a protest,” Boehmer said. Twitter was abuzz with suppositions that the act was meant to make a point about the recent debate over contraception in Georgetown’s health care, but Boehmer did not see or hear anything that indicated the group had any clear motivation or goal.

Students also expressed the blatant lack of respect the action demonstrated to the sacred location. “It is disrespectful to Georgetown’s Catholic identity to leave these items in one of Georgetown’s most sacred spaces. Many members of the Catholic faith on campus, including the Jesuits, an institution of Georgetown, would be shocked to find this scene at Dahlgren Chapel on their way to practice their faith,” Boehmer said.

Update: 2:50AM Vox obtained a screenshot of a Facebook conversation between students, presumably members of the intramural volleyball club, describing the night’s events. Based on the evidence, it appears that the condoms were placed in the fountain of Dahlgren Quad for the students to collect.

Picture of the conversation below:

Vox will continue to update this post as we learn more about the situation.

Photos of Dahlgren Quad taken by Kirill Makarenko