From: jmc@Gang-of-Four.usenet (John McCarthy)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Censorship on the USENET
Date: 2 Nov 90 05:38:32 GMT
	<1990Oct21.141502.26557@hoss.unl.edu>
	<1990Oct31.141646.25350@ifi.uio.no>
	<1990Nov01.064916.19218@looking.on.ca> <BZS.90Nov1195146@world.std.com>
Distribution: comp
Organization: /u/jmc/.organization

In 1989 rec.humor.funny was suppressed in some of the Stanford
University computers.  After a campaign it was re-installed
in those computers.  It was never suppressed in the Computer
Science Department's computers.  There follow two relevant
documents.  The first is self-explanatory, and the second
came about through the following sequence of events.
(1) Donald Kennedy, Stanford's President, told the Academic
Senate that he supported the suppression but would defer to
the Senate.

(2) The Senate Steering Committee asked the Committee on Libraries
for a general policy recommendation on how to treat electronic
newsgroups.  Referring the issue to the Committee on Libraries
indicated what kind of issue the Steering Committee thought was
involved.

(3) The Committee on Libraries made the statement given below.

(4) The Steering Committee asked the Vice-President for Information
Resources (i.e. the boss of the computer centers) whether
he preferred to back down and re-establish rec.humor.funny
or have the matter discussed by the full Senate.

(5) He backed down somewhat grumpily.

The following statement was passed unanimously at a meeting
of the Computer Science Department faculty of Stanford
University on Tuesday, Feb 21, 1989.

Statement of Protest about the AIR Censorship of rec.humor.funny.

Computer scientists and computer users have been involved in
making information resources widely available since the 1960s.
Such resources are analogous to libraries.  The newsgroups
available on various networks are the computer analog of
magazines and partial prototypes of future universal computer
libraries.  These libraries will make available the information
resources of the whole world to anyone's terminal or personal
computer.

Therefore, the criteria for including newsgroups in computer
systems or removing them should be identical to those for
including books in or removing books from libraries.  For this
reason, and since the resource requirements for keeping
newsgroups available are very small, we consider it contrary to
the function of a university to censor the presence of newsgroups in
University computers.  We regard it as analogous to removing a
book from the library.  To be able to read anything subject only
to cost limitations is an essential part of academic freedom.
Censorship is not an appropriate tool for preventing or dealing
with offensive behavior.

We therefore think that AIR and SDC should rescind the purge of
rec.humor.funny.  The Computer Science Department has also decided
not to censor Department Computers.

*****

Here's something else - a statement by the Stanford faculty
committee on libraries.

Office Memo, Stanford University Libraries
~date: April 12, 1989
To: The Steering Committee of the Academic Senate via Arthur Coladarci
~From: Joan Krasner, Secretary, C-Lib
The following is an excerpt from the minutes of the April 10th meeting
of C-Lib which considered the matter of computer bulletin boards on campus.
The Preamble to the Statement on Academic Freedom (1974) states that
``Expression of the widest range of viewpoints should be encouraged, free
from institutional orthodoxy and from internal or external coercion.''
It is the view of the Academic Council Committee on Libraries that this
statement pertains to materials received on computer bulletin boards on
campus.  Acquisition and access to information in new forms should be
subject only to financial limits and other standard criteria of collection
such as the useful life of the materials, storage capacity, etc.
- approved by Academic Council Commmittee on Libraries, April 10, 1989.
XC: Gerald Gillespie

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From comp.org.eff.talk Sun Oct 21 15:11:04 1990