Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 14, 1995 TAG: 9510170008
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
With the message, the home page operators sent a copy of Tech's computer-use policy, plucked from cyberspace. They thought perhaps the message was a violation.
"We agreed," said Dean of Students Cathy Goree.
The student now has the distinction of being the first ever to be sanctioned under the "acceptable use" policy governing the computer network at the university. The case also underscores the simple fact that computer transmissions are easily tracked, and points to the myriad questions being raised about appropriate use of the world-wide Internet.
The message, which violates policy against using mail systems on the university's computer server, or network on-ramp, "to harass, intimidate, or otherwise annoy another person ..."
The message began:
"We believe in gay rights
1. Their right to be shot.
2. Their right to be castrated.
3. Their right to die a slow, painful death."
The rest of the message cannot be printed. But Goree characterized it as "way over the line," and said she felt the case could help educate students that "there's a policy out there they need to be aware of, we will take seriously if they violate, and further, computer transmissions leave tracks."
Police and university computer systems experts tracked down the student who sent the message to the home page - a screen that links computer users to a business, university, or perhaps just an array of articles on a particular topic.
Once confronted, the student "accepted responsibility," Goree said.
After a university judicial board hearing, the student was given a sanction "commensurate with case precedent of other serious violations of student code of conduct," said Goree, refusing to elaborate further.
But it's an important distinction that the student, whose identity is being withheld by the university, was tried within its judicial system - not a court of law. The school can regulate use of university property, said a computer center administrator, Bill Saunders.
Also, administrators say, using the university's judicial system allows a young person to be punished and educated at the same time - without potentially destroying a life or future career.
Law governing Internet postings is, at best, emerging.
"The short of it is, there's not a whole lot of law on that, but a lot of people thinking about it," said Robert O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression at the University of Virginia.
In June, a judge dismissed charges against a University of Michigan student who posted violent sexual fantasies about a classmate. According to the Associated Press, the judge found that the student's musings and fantasies to harm his classmate did not violate the Constitution unless some intent to commit the acts was expressed.
"If anything, electronic expression is less readily suppressible than print or written," said O'Neil, who is also a law professor. "All I really advocate is similar treatment until or unless [there is] identified some special feature of electronic communication that justifies intervention."
It's difficult to convict someone for an oral or written threat, unless it's made against the U.S. president, O'Neil said.
Like Tech, UVa issues policies governing use of its computers and its server. Transmissions from any server carry with them the name of the particular server, so a well-known university would be easily recognized by Internet users.
UVa policy tries to ensure that computer use supports the school's academic mission, said Polley McClure, UVa's vice president for information technology.
"It's a little bit easier to draw a line about what is university business when it comes to staff activities than it is with students, because students are here in order to learn," she said.
"Much of the exploratory and creative things they do are really a part of how they're learning, not only about the technology, but how to operate in an electronic society. We try to be as tolerant as we can with regard to student use," she said.
A "serious threat to take another person's life, I think, would be viewed as potentially against the law," she said.
Both McClure and Saunders said that sometimes students make mistakes, even as they learn to use the Internet.
"That's why you have a judicial process. You want to to be educational, not just punitive. There are people who make mistakes out of ignorance, and it's not necessarily the case you want to see their lives ruined over their first offense," Saunders said.
McClure recounted the story of a student posting on a newsgroup she discovered while working at another university. The post, "in my judgment, [was] obscene, offensive, and, taken absolutely literally, words did indicate a threat to the other party's life.
"As it turns out ... it was the standard genre to use that kind of a metaphor in the context of that environment," she said.
The student was given a talking-to by the head of his department.
"And the behavior stopped," she said.
by CNB