From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Banned Computer Material 1992
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 21:16:04 GMT

feit@ERA.COM (Mark Feit) writes:

[...]
>When most colleges/universities give you an account, you get it for
>the sole purpose of completing assignments in a course, for research,
>etc.

Happily, more and more schools now have the resources to provide free
accounts for general use. This is consisent with the academic ideal in
which members of the academic community have some freedom to explore
their own interests. It is analogous to most academic libraries that
don't ask to know and don't care why you are browsing and borrowing
books.

> True, plenty of other stuff (reading news, etc.) goes on and the
>rule isn't enforced when the outside activities don't interfere with
>those who are using their accounts to the end for which they were
>issued.

When resources are scarce, priorities have to be established. These
priorities should not, however, be used to removed material just
because some find it offensive. For example, if there are no resources
for "recreational" newsgroups, then both alt.sex and
rec.sport.football should go, not just alt.sex.

>  But you're still using the university's resources.  If you
>keep doing something you've been asked to stop because it eats
>resources others need to use, then as far as I'm concerned they've got
>all the right in the world to pull the rug out from under you and
>start due process.  I don't see why due process can't start _after_
>the rug pulling, since the perpetrator likely to keep pulling the same
>stunts if the account remains in place.
[...]

Is a student or professor really likely to keep breaking rules when he
or she knows that some type of disciplinary hearing is coming up?  If
you have good reason to believe that the "stunts" will continue then
the rug pulling is justified. But this should be the exception. As the
Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students says:

======= excerpts ftp.eff.org:pub/academic/academic/student.freedoms.aaup ===
C. Status of Student Pending Final Action

  Pending action on the charges, the status of a student
should not be altered, or his right to be present on the
campus and to attend classes suspended, except for
reasons relating to his physical or emotional safety and
well being, or for reasons relating to the safety and well-being
of students, faculty, or university property.

[...]
>As for having the right to express yourself, you've got it.  But as
>was pointed out in another thread on another newsgroup, just because
>you've got the right to express yourself doesn't mean that others have
>to provide the soap box.
[...]

Actually, at a university to some degree they do. For example, most
universities guarantee students and faculty the right to use
classrooms for meetings and to hear invited speakers.

- Carl

ANNOTATED REFERENCES

(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)

=================
faq/media.control
=================
q: Since freedom of the press belongs to those who own presses, a
public university can do anything it wants with the media that it
owns, right?

=================
academic/student.freedoms.aaup
=================
Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students -- This is the main
U.S. statement on student academic freedom.

=================
=================

These document(s) are available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):

  pub/academic/faq/media.control
  pub/academic/academic/student.freedoms.aaup

To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):

send acad-freedom/faq media.control
send acad-freedom/academic student.freedoms.aaup
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk