Want to eat burritos with a likely first-round NFL draft pick? Enchiladas with a calendar model?

The members of Project Suyana, a group that raises money for health care in Peru, hope you'll pay big bucks for a Mexican dinner with students ranging from defensive end Lamarr Woodley to Michelle Rosado, who appears in a calendar called the "Girls of Michigan."

Project Suyana will sell dates with twenty students at an auction tomorrow night in an effort to raise money for a Peruvian women's shelter. Attendees will bid on dinner at Salsarita's Fresh Cantina, a new Mexican restaurant on East Liberty Street, with one of 20 men and women at 7:30 p.m. tonight in the ballroom of the Michigan Union.

The University's website for student organizations says a date or "slave" auction "devalues a human being to the level and merchandise" and "has the appearance of actual slave auctions."

Event organizers said they were unaware of the advisory policy. Project Suyana founder Yasmin El-Sayed said she doesn't see anything wrong with the auction.

The University's advisory guidelines also stress the risk of sexual assault when someone is forced to go out with someone who might be a stranger.

The statement on date auctions was added to the index within the last few years was taken from another school's policy almost word for word, said Susan Wilson, the University's director for student activities and leadership.

The policy came out of a national conference attended by professionals in higher education administration, where colleagues discuss matters like student attitudes and campus policies, she said.

Wilson said there hasn't been widespread objection to date auctions on campus recently but that she and other administrators and faculty members still view the practice as inappropriate.

Wilson said student attitudes toward date auctions seemed to have changed over her career. She said she remembers how in the 1980s, during her college years, such events sparked controversy and sometimes even attracted organized demonstrations.

"It's a huge cultural and societal symbol of oppression," she said. "It's hard for me. It's like seeing a Nazi symbol."

The auction organizers don't think the event will be found offensive or compared to historic slave auctions.

"The whole event is very different," El-Sayed said. "It's not about using each other. It's mutual."

Several students said a date auction doesn't evoke images of the slave trade for them.

"To say that something like this done in a light-hearted way for a good cause is even remotely close to slave trading isn't giving justice to the horrific and racist historic slave auctions," LSA junior Jen Bojan said.

Some students said the comparison to the slave trade is unwarranted, but that the process of date auctions objectifies participants.

"It seems like a high school popularity contest and like it's based on looks," LSA junior Alexia Moreland said.

Moreland said reading the University's advisory statement made her think such events might not be harmless.

"It's for a good cause, but other organizations shouldn't follow in their footsteps," she said.

El-Sayed said the members of Project Suyana didn't encounter any negative opinions of the event while they were asking students to put themselves up for auction.

Only three students who were asked declined to participate in the fundraiser, El-Sayed said.

Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps told planners that he would be out-of-town. Another student said she didn't want to garner lingering, unwanted attention from a stranger who might win her - an experience her friend had after participating in a date auction for another campus group, El-Sayed said.

Bidding for love

Men up for auction:

Michigan football player Lamarr Woodley

Michigan Student Assembly Rep. Tony Saunders

Basketball player Ron Coleman

Law student Josh Tetrick

Interfraternity Council President Jared Averbuch

Mr. Engineer 2007 Brian Foster

Women up for auction:

Michigan cheerleader Ariel Haskins

Arab Student Association member Dina Al-Joburi

Girls of Michigan Calendar model Michelle Rosado

LSA sophomore Caitlin Cohan

LSA junior Alisa Sumkin

Project Suyana member Preeti Iyer