Lift the Ban on Censored Bboards Last Tuesday Carnegie Mellon University removed 14 electronic bboards that supposedly carried graphic sexual images after being notified that a research study to be released in early December had suggested the school could encounter legal trouble if it continued to provide access to them. The administration now claims that legally it's required to continue to censor sexually-explicit bboards. This claim is misguided. "We no longer provide access to the alt.binaries groups, the three groups which are primarily graphic sexual images. There is widespread, though not universal, agreement that these bboards contain images which are clearly obscene," says Erwin Steinberg, vice-provost for education. However, the bboards that have been removed include text-only discussion groups, groups devoted to cartoons, and groups that carried pictures from the Japanese art of anime. Until they were removed, some of the bboards had contained images that would have been more appropriate in a Walt Disney movie than a XXX movie theater. The administration's decision, made by Computing Services VP Bill Arms, to censor those bboards without investigating their contents is foolhardy. Arms even admits he only looked at a handful of bboards before deciding to remove them. Now a committee composed of the heads of Student Government, Faculty Senate, and Staff Council and chaired by Steinberg will investigate which bboards should be removed and which should be brought back. "We are establishing an advisory committee of students, faculty and staff to begin a review of these bboard immediately and to recommend to the provost and president which, if any, of these bboards might violate relevant obscenity standards and thereby no longer be deemed worthy for inclusion within the university-sponsored system," says Steinberg. But until the committee releases its report -- which could take weeks or months -- all of the bboards should remain. The administration claims that for legal reasons the bboards must stay off our computer systems, but that's not true. Last Thursday the American Civil Liberties Union sent a memorandum to Faculty Senate and Student Government saying that the administration's stand "is a red herring" and that the University "cannot credibly argue that it liable to criminal prosecution for maintaining sexually explicit material on computers." [The document is available online in /afs/andrew/usr0/sbp/Censorship] The eight-page legal brief details exactly why the administration's position is flawed. In short, it says the "University is, in effect, functioning as an electronic librarian" and is exempt from the Pennsylvania obscenity law. The brief also notes that the University "cannot credibly argue that it is liable to criminal prosecution" for allowing minors to read sexually-explicit material because the school "could not be expected to monitor content" on the thousands of Internet-wide bboards. But the administration has ignored the advice of the ACLU lawyers who specialize in online issues, and has insisted the committee be the group who decides the fate of the bboards. The administration has also used the media to cloud the issue in shades of murky sexual imagery. Instead of standing up for the principles of free speech and academic freedom, President Robert Mehrabian stood up to television cameras and condemned "bestiality and child porn" that he said circulates on the Internet. Instead of defending the Internet as a a powerful new communications mechanism, he defended Carnegie Mellon's right to censor what it wished. The faculty has joined students in their outrage over the administration's decision. Faculty representatives on Faculty Senate last Thursday unanimously passed a resolution condemning the University's action and demanding the banned bboards be restored immediately. "I was proud of Carnegie Mellon, because we're always first in technology," said Herb Toor, professor emeritus of chemical engineering and former chair of Faculty Senate, at the Faculty Senate meeting. "Now we're first in censoring free speech." So far, the administration has been willing to listen to concerns from the University community, and this dialogue must continue. But this dialogue does not excuse the administration from taking immediate action to restore the banned bboards. There is no legal or technical reason to remove them. The University must stand up for the principles upon which it was founded and resist the urge to censor. It must stand fast against negative publicity. It must embrace free speech and academic freedom and restore the removed bboards. Declan McCullagh is Student Body President.