mesard@bbn.com (Wayne Mesard) (03/31/89)
In article <10214@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> fkchang@athena.mit.edu (Sue's guy) writes: >In article <78650WHV@PSUVM> WHV@PSUVM.BITNET (Bill Verity) writes: >>Mr. Whitehead's account has been suspended and his instructor notified. This >>case has been turned over to the Office of Conduct Standards. > Surely, many, including myself were grossly offended. However, >he was expressing he free speech. > Perhaps he overstepped the bounds of "common accepted " decency here, >But I believe him to be entitled to his opinion, as evil as they are. He certainly has the right to his opinions. And the right to publically express them. But the university has the right to determine how its facilities are to be used. A computer account is not a constitutionally-mandated right. Mr. Whitehead's actions are no more protected than mine if I insisted on storing my heartfelt opinions on your PC's hard disk. -- unsigned *Wayne_Mesard(); "Get that OUT of your signature file!" MESARD@BBN.COM -DB. BBN, Cambridge, MA
patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) (04/01/89)
In article <38066@bbn.COM> mesard@BBN.COM (Wayne Mesard) writes: >He certainly has the right to his opinions. And the right to publically >express them. But the university has the right to determine how its >facilities are to be used. A computer account is not a >constitutionally-mandated right. >Mr. Whitehead's actions are no more protected than mine if I insisted on >storing my heartfelt opinions on your PC's hard disk. Whether or not Whitehead has a legally valid complaint about his computer access being cut would depend on his relationship with the university in this respect. Are all persons similarly situated (i.e. all students; all faculty; all staff) given computer access as a normal and customary part of their relationship (whatever it is) with the university? If the answer is yes, all students have, or are entitled to have computer access, then the cutting of Whitehead's access merely because of his exercise of free speech would seem to be inappropriate. Whitehead is not accused of failure to pay fees or service charges involved with the use of the computer. He is not deemed to be a security problem to the computer facility. It appears all Whitehead is accused of doing is making a speech which the university found offensive. Therefore, even though there is no constitutionally mandated right to have computer access, the fact that everyone similarly situtated does have access and the only reason he doesn't is because of his speech, the Constitution has been offended. The last I heard, Penn State is a government institution, paid for with government money. Therefore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights regards freedom of speech would apply, would they not? We are not discussing a privately owned computer in a privatly operated school where the owners of the school/computer are free to act in a capricious manner within the limits of whatever binding contracts they may have with others. We are talking about the government! And in the instance at hand, the government, via its agent Bill Verity at Penn State, have said they found the speech of someone to be offensive to their notions of what is in vogue at present, to wit, the lifestyles of homosexuals. So they punished Whitehead for his speech. According to Verity, Whitehead's instructor has been notified of the heresy of his student. I suspect some appropriate discipline will be meted out to teach Whitehead a lesson about having thoughts like that in the future. Thanks to Mr. Verity, the delicacies of the Usenet audience have been protected, and our virgin eyes and ears will never again be violated by someone daring to preach heresy about homosexuals. And Usenet will live happily ever after. Once again, the imminent death of the net has been postponed for another week. We owe Mr. Verity our deepest thanks for protecting us by bravely taking the high moral road and cancelling out some poor stooge's Usenet account. -- Patrick Townson patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu / US Mail: 60690-1570 FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) / MCI Mail: 222-4956