With American universities larded with petrodollars for setting up academic programs in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Gulf States, it is worth pondering a recent case involving a Saudi university professor who faces 150 lashes and eight months in jail for meeting a woman to whom he was not related for coffee in the conservative Islamic kingdom. Saudi Arabia does not permit women to mix with unrelated men; men and women found guilty of such encounters, known as khilwa offenses, are punished.

Will khilwa apply to U.S. profs teaching in the Middle East? Coffee, anyone?