bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (08/28/83)
Well aside from the oft-stated fact that there is no way in the world you could ever enforce a women-only posting rule (I would strongly suggest that any site which DARES to send a cancellation message for an article they don't like be forced off the net and not be allowed to connect for at least 6 months or until the person who did it has their account purged permanently) I wonder if such a rule would be illegal. The net is certainly a public forum. There are no restrictions (aside from hardware) to joining, no rules one must officially abide by, and certainly no contract signed concerning conduct. In my country, discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal, and I think it is in the USA as well. Any public forum like a television station that dared to refuse a complaint on the sole grounds that the complainer was of a given sex (say male) would be taken off the air if they didn't rectify the problem. While it is legal for certain private clubs to practice descrimination (The Catholic Church, for example, does not allow women clergy) of this type, the net is by no means such an organization. So scrap net.women.only, I think you're breaking the laws of the land. I'll defer to an official legal opinion, of course. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304
kwmc@hou5d.UUCP (08/29/83)
It should be noted that reverse discrimination in the USA is legal. I.E. you can hire a woman and reject a man of equal qualification on the grounds of sex, to implement affirmative action quotas. This is substantiated by case law, and also seems to be the practice within the Bell System. Ken Cochran, hou5d!kwmc All disclaimers you can think of should be appended here .....