Justin Gage
CS319 HN
Dr. Grodzinsky
Dr. Lilley
3/1/05
Short Essay #3
In response to the grievance filed against the university, the student who has posted obscene photographs on our web servers has no right to do so.
We should not allow the student to post any material deemed inappropriate by the university because the servers hosting the material are owned by the university.
We believe that any content stored on university property should be subject to removal by the university.
Precedence has been set at other universities and I believe we should follow the example of those that came before us. As is stated in the Web Publishing Policy for the
University of
Colorado at
Boulder, “[T]he university may investigate complaints, and may remove or limit access to web pages that are deemed unacceptable. Since access to University web space is a
privilege, acceptability will be determined primarily on how closely the content of the site is related to the individual's role in the university's mission of teaching, research, creative work, and public service.”
[1] This policy outlines precisely what it is we are trying to limit and would be a good resource should we decide to establish a publishing policy as a result of this hearing.
The student in favor of retaining his web space has argued that we should allow him to publish anything he wishes because it is his right to do so according to the First Amendment's freedom of speech clause.
He believes that students should be allowed to post whatever they want because it is their right.
In order for me to agree with his view, I would have to assume that the university had no place in monitoring and controlling content within its domain.
This assumption is about the right of the university to prevent information that is not representative of the university's views from appearing in its web space.
Since I do not agree with the alternative view, I must assume that the university does have the right to control what content is displayed.
The equipment used to post web sites is funded by the university and therefore should be subject to approval.
Although this student believes that as an institution, we resemble a totalitarian government such as
China, that according to Kurlantzick, “[H]as created the most extensive system of Internet censorship in the world and has almost completely controlled the impact of the Web on dissent,”
[2] we do not wish to censor constructive and academic material.
Also, without the free access to the university's equipment, the student would otherwise have to pay for a domain name in order to publish anything on the web.
This fact alone is grounds for the university to control the content of its web space.
In order to more closely examine my support for this stance, we will discuss this issue in terms of the three ethical theories: ethics of purpose, principle and consequence.
According to an ethics of purpose, this situation would be considered an excess within the spectrum of the Golden Mean, while someone who does not utilize the ability to publish a web site would be the deficiency.
Somewhere in between those two is the responsible student who uses the web space for a meritorious purpose such as posting scholarly material.
Also, the obscene material posted by this student is not conducive to the learning environment present at this university.
An ethics of principle would take a different approach to this dilemma, but arrives at the same conclusion: obscene material is not beneficial to the university community.
Students sign a waiver upon entering the university that says they will not post harmful or objectionable material on the university's web space if it is disrespectful to those in the campus population.
Out of obligation to the students' peers and faculty members, students should not be allowed to post anything they wish because it could reflect poorly on the university.
Finally, according to an ethics of consequence, our position is solidified because the affect of allowing obscene content to be present in our web space on the university community embodies a wide range of issues.
For the student who disagrees with our right to control content, Toby Lester offers that, “…no right to privacy is specified in the Constitution. This comes as a surprise to many people, who tend to assume that privacy is one of the bedrock rights upon which American society is built.”
[3] The student who filed this grievance feels that his privacy and right to free expression are being infringed upon, yet at an institution of learning such as this university, the right to free expression ends when it affects others in a negative way.
It is my recommendation to the grievance committee that the student's request to re-establish his obscene website be denied.
The best interest of the university lies in the continuation of enforcing the current policy that any and all offensive material will be removed if found present on the web servers.
If a student wishes to publish material that we deem inappropriate, there are many domain name services available where he/she could publish the desired material, but we will not allow this behavior to occur under our domain.
[1] University of Colorado at Boulder, “Web Publishing Policy,” http://www.colorado.edu/policies/webpolicy.html.
[2] Joshua Kurlantzick, “Dictatorship.com,” The New Republic, April 5, 2004, 23.
[3] Toby Lester, “The Reinvention of Privacy,” 10.
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