Tsk, tsk. Those pesky Academics tried to install another censorship code at Cal Poly and failed. They just aren't happy with unmuzzled students. From "Volokh."
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[Eugene Volokh, 6:52 PM]
Free speech at Cal Poly: If you want to read the proposed Internet speech code resolution from Cal Poly that I mentioned yesterday (it was rejected by the Cal Poly committee, 6-4), see here. Key language:
RESOLVED: That the following wording be inserted as "Policy Application" in item 1, section D. of the Cal Poly Information Technology Resources Responsible Use Policy: To promote the University’s commitment to "providing an environment where all share in the common responsibility to safeguard each other's
rights, encourage a mutual concern for individual growth and appreciate the benefits of a diverse campus community", the University does not permit of the use of its computing resources for non-University purposes that could create a hostile environment, including, but not limited to, transmitting sexually explicit, racially or ethnically degrading material
(Note that the policy by its terms applies "to any user of the University's information technology resources, whether initiated from a computer located on or off-campus," which presumably includes students and student newspapers and organizations as well as faculty and staff; and the declarations that precede the resolution clearly contemplated that the speech code would apply to students as well as faculty.) "Sexually explicit" is defined as
(i) any description of or (ii) any picture, photograph, drawing, motion picture film, digital image or similar visual representation depicting sexual bestiality, a lewd exhibition of nudity, as nudity, sexual excitement, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse, coprophilia, urophilia, or fetishism
and "transmitting" is defined as "access[ing], download[ing], send[ing], or cop[ying] data."
So the policy would have imposed a viewpoint-based restriction on sending or reading "racially or ethnically degarding material" (limited to non-University purposes, of course, but that would presumably cover a wide range of extracurricular student speech). It would have also prohibited any extracurricular sending or reading any description of lewd exhibitions of nudity, sexual excitement, or sexual conduct.
Quite a thing to propose at a modern university, it seems to me. I'm very glad that it was defeated, but sad that it was even urged.
volokh.com |
