Peter Black's Freedom to Differ

UNSW thinking about stopping free wi-fi ... what is this really about?

The Fairfax papers have a story today about the University of New South Wales considering stopping its free wi-fi internet for students because so many students are using it to download illegal files:

The University of NSW has threatened to axe its free wireless internet service because students are bringing in their laptops and using them to download pirated music, movies and games.

The university's director of IT, Michael Kirby-Lewis, said complaints about illegal downloading by students had risen from one or two a month to "a number a day", putting UNSW and students at risk of litigation for copyright infringement.

UNSW has been issuing fines of up to $1000 to students who use its free wireless network for illegal downloading. Money generated by the fines is donated to fund student facilities around campus.

Sabiene Heindl, general manager of the music industry's anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations, said research by the Australian Recording Industry Association had found one in three under 24-year-olds downloaded music illegally.

She pointed to recent research by German online traffic management company iPoque that found 57 per cent of all Australian internet traffic was generated by peer-to-peer networks, which contain mainly pirated content.

Heindl welcomed the decision by UNSW to educate students about the risks of illegal downloading but denied the music industry had threatened the university with legal action.

On Friday afternoon, Kirby-Lewis sent a note to all students warning that the viability of the university's free wireless network had been "placed under threat" due to incidents of illegal downloading.

Students caught engaging in the practice would have their wireless access blocked for the remainder of the session and be subject to formal disciplinary action including fines of up to $1000.

Read more here (from The Age).  To be honest I can't blame the UNSW for thinking about taking this action - not only is the university potentially leaving itself open to litigation against it, but the numbers of people using the network in this way would be placing a strain on the network itself.  However, at its core this is merely a sympton of a much bigger challenge facing the entertainment industries. 

Despite extensive advertising campaigns and some high profile lawsuits in the US, young Australians continue to believe that it is acceptable to download music, movies and TV shows unlawfully rather than pay for them or wait for them to be released or broadcast in Australia.  Indeed, I am suprised that ARIA has found that only one in three under 24-year-olds downloaded music illegally.  Based upon my discussions with students (and law students at that, including students who are stuyding copyright law), I would have thought that figure would be much higher.  It seems to me that the entertainment industries are facing a losing battle and that they need to introduce new business models that embrace the reality that the future of entertainment is online.  iTunes, YouTube and Hulu are all steps in the right direction, except for one fatal flaw - they continue to insist on imposing national boundaries on the internet.  Not only are the various geo-identification techniques they use to impose these artificial national boundaries on the internet flawed, they fail to apreciate that the future of entertainment is not only online, it is also international.  The entertainment industries are not only losing this battle, they are losing the war - they need to move forward and embrace the future of digital entertainment.

"Chillax: if it works like a word, just use it"

Erin McKean, lexicographer (dictionaryevangelist.com) and blogger (dressaday.com), says if it looks like a word, just use it:

Funner. Impactful. Blowiest. Territorialism. Multifunctionality. Dialoguey. Dancey. Thrifting. Chillaxing. Anonymized. Interestinger. Wackaloon. Updatelette. Noirish. Huger. Domainless. Delegator. Photocentric. Relationshippy. Bestest. Zoomable.

What do all these words have in common? Someone, somewhere, is using them with a disclaimer like "I know it's not a real word ..."

There's no good reason for the "not a real word" stigma. They all look like English words: they're written in the roman alphabet, without numbers or funny symbols. They're all easily pronounced - not a qwrtlg or a gxrch in the group.

From a purely functional point of view, they act like words: relationshippy in the sentence "Just come to the conclusion that boys don't like talking about relationshippy things" behaves in exactly the same way that an adjective like girly would.

And funner in the sentence "I don't know a better person or a funner person to be around - I love you, Mom," hinders the understanding of the reader not a jot. We all get that the writer really, really loves her mom, and changing funner to "more fun" wouldn't improve their relationship - or that heartfelt tribute - one bit.

But if all these words look wordish, sound wordish, and act wordish, why are they all hedged about with the namby-pamby "I know it's not a real word" disclaimers? (Note: wordish is a perfectly good word.)

Read it here (from Online Opinion).

Academics on Facebook

When I first joined Facebook I was nervous about what role it should have (if any) with my students.  Indeed, for quite some time I used to ignore Friend Requests from students.  However, I ultimately took advantage of the limited profile and then advanced privacy settings and configured a version of my Facebook page that respected my privacy but also allowed me to connect with students who wished to 'friend' me on Facebook.  I now regularly get messages from students on Facebook as it is frequently and increasingly more convenient than email for both of us.  I have even created a closed Facebook group for first year law students at QUT, activley encouraging them to use the platform to get to know one another in a 'safe' online environment.  The upshot of this is that I have given quite a bit of thought of how lecturers can use Facebook to create communities of learners and facilitate communication between teacher and student.

What I haven't given much thought to is the role Facebook can play as a channel of communication between academics.  That's why I was particularly taken with this post by Kaimipono Wenger at Concurring Opinions:

True, the "should academics use Facebook?" article is fast becoming passe. (See also: "should academics blog?", "should academics use MySpace?", and "should academics navel-gaze?") However, a recent post on the HNN (History News Network) is a particularly good example of the species. In a discussion of whether historians should use Facebook, historian Jesse Lemisch sets out some helpful analysis:

Why should historians be on Facebook? I think it has the potential to be an electronic version of the halls of the AHA: a place of lively and utterly informal talk about what historians are doing and saying, and what’s going on in their lives. Just as Facebook threatens to replace college reunions, it can constitute something like a professional meeting, between professional meetings. (Note that “something like”: I have no desire with this proposal to replace professional meetings, but rather to extend them.)

I value the papers given at the AHA and OAH, but I generally come away from these meetings as well educated by conversations in the halls, and while prowling the book exhibits. Somebody has mounted a stupid and uncomprehending attack on me in a book whose galleys are available at booth 432. And there he is, at booth 927, hiding, but available for animated conversation. Here’s somebody you haven’t seen in years, and, thank goodness, she has a name badge. And, you find, she is doing fascinating work. Here is somebody who responds to regards to the spouse with a facial expression that tells you immediately that your information is no longer accurate. And here are historians of all stripes, and information about new sources and new work and controversies not yet erupted. And so on: readers of HNN know what happens in the halls of the AHA. For better or worse, all these things can happen on Facebook.

This sounds like an admirable enough goal.  Why not chat about books, vacations, restaurants, and whatever else on Facebook? 

There are interesting parallels to law. For instance, of conversations I've had at AALS, I'd say maybe a quarter of them have been purely law conversations of the type it would be hard to have online. But the majority have been general-topic chats of one kind or another. Ideally, Facebook and sites like it can facilitate the broad, cocktail-party mingling that helps keep law professors -- a notoriously socially awkward group -- connected and in general contact with one another. In theory, this could be good. (On the other hand, it's awfully tricky to gossip on a public forum.) Right? What's not to like about it?

I would write a lot more about how law professors could use Facebook, but duty calls. II have an urgent appointment to attack Nate's zombie with my vampire before my daily attacks expire. Then, perhaps after a few games of Word Twist, I'll be back with Part 2.

Read more here.  A number of my colleagues at QUT and elsewhere are friends with me on Facebook, but I can't say we are really using it in this way.  Some don't really use it all (or use it rarely), and those who do tend to use it as an escapist distraction.  Perhaps it is time for me and my academic colleagues to lift the tone of our Facebook time (well, at least maybe some of our time)?

What (if anything) do the exams I've set say about me?

Ever since the New York Times posted copies of the exams Barack Obama set while a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, the media and the blogosphere have been carefully analysing them, trying to find what they reveal about him, his mind and his ideology.  I must confess that I haven't spent a great deal of time looking at them, but reading the commentary made me think of the exams I have set at QUT over the last few years.  I wonder what they reveal about me?

While such self-analysis is probably a futile exercise, I think the answer to the question is: not much.  The exam questions and assignment topics I have set reflect what are currently unresolved or emerging issues in whatever area of law it is.  They probably show a slight obsession on emerging IT issues, but then again that also stems from the areas that I teach (and the constitutional law question I set that involved the internet was inspired by Betfair, which at the time had been heard by the High Court but no judgment had been delivered). 

I'd be interested in hearing what other academics think their exams may (or may not) reveal about them ...

The law of Facebook

Law students at the University of Ottawa have filed a complaint with the Canadian federal privacy commissioner against Facebook:

The students, including several dedicated Facebook users, allege the popular social networking website has committed 22 violations of Canadian privacy law.

They allege Facebook fails to inform members about how their personal information is disclosed to third parties for advertising and other profit-making activities, and also that it doesn't get permission from users to do so.

The students drew up the complaint after analyzing the company's policies and practices as part of a clinic course during the winter term.

Clinic director Philippa Lawson said the group focused on Facebook — which boasts more than seven million Canadian members — because it appeals to young teens who may not realize the risks of exposing personal information online.

Under law, the privacy commissioner has up to one year to investigate the complaint and present findings.

Read more here (from CBC News).  Although I wouldn't know the first thing about Canadian privacy law, my feeling Facebook's terms of service would not violate Australian law, but it did remind me of part an internet class I taught with John Swinson on the law of Google. Given that experience the more interesting point from my perspective is that this lawsuit was driven by a clinic at the University of Ottawa.  And although the merits may ultimately fail it highlights what an effective teaching tool it is to use clinics.  Although common in the US and Canada, there a very few clinics in Australia's law schools, which I think is a pity.  QUT has recently introduced a work integrated learning program, which includes plans for a legal clinic and I hope that this a form of learning that becomes more dominant in Australian law schools. 

QUT Legal Practice 30th Anniversary Free Public Lecture by Justice Michael Kirby

The QUT Legal Practice Unit is hosting an exciting event on 17 June:

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the QUT Legal Practice Unit, Justice Michael Kirby is presenting a Free Public Lecture.

In this public lecture Justice Michael Kirby will describe recent developments in the High Court of Australia concerning the interpretation of legislation and the Constitution.

In recent years the Court has repeatedly insisted upon the adoption of a ‘purposive’ interpretation of legal texts. This has led to closer attention to the purpose and objects of legislation in place of the often literal attention to statutory language that marked earlier decisions. The new approach has, in turn, refocussed attention upon context as well as text. However, differences can still arise. These will be illustrated by reference to the High Court’s recent decision in Carr v Western Australia (2007) 82 ALJR 1.

Also in recent years there have been strongly expressed differences concerning the use that may be made of international law materials in interpreting provisions of the Australian Constitution. Reference will be made in this connection to the strongly divided opinions in the Court in Al-Kateb v Godwin (2004) 219 CLR 562 and Roach v Electoral Commissioner (2007) 81 ALJR 1830.

Event: QUT Legal Practice 30th Anniversary Free Public Lecture

Speaker: Justice Michael Kirby, Justice of the High Court of Australia

Title: New Approaches to Interpretation - A very practical question

Date: Tuesday 17 June 2008

Time: 4.30pm - 5.30pm

Venue: Lecture Theatre Z401, Level 4, Z Block, QUT Gardens Point Campus

RSVP: rsvplaw@qut.edu.au

Desperate times call for desperate measures

The New York Magazine reports on a NYU student who has invented a virtual girlfriend ... as part of art class:

Photo: Courtesy of Drew Burrows

You work late. Like, every night. You probably screwed up your last steady relationship, and, well, maybe there's no one to curl up next to in bed when you stumble in the door at night. Drew Burrows knows the feeling. "I'm in this grad program right now, and it's totally consuming," he said. "I come home every night to an empty bed." So Burrows, 28, engineered (literally) a solution, which he unveiled to the public last night at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program Spring Show at Tisch School of the Arts.

It's simple to behold — a single mattress, tucked into a dark, curtained back room of the showcase space. On it: a lithe brunette. She's perfectly quiet, but once you sit or lie down, she responds to your every move. Lie on your back, she snuggles up right next to you in a log position. Curl up in the fetal position, she spoons. The only hitch: She's 2-D. "Yeah, you can't feel the girl. That's the thing," Burrows explained as he demonstrated his invention, an "infrared sensitive" light projection (meaning it reacts, and the projected woman moves, based on an infrared sensor) called INBED. "Still, it's so nice if you're tired and worn out to have someone to curl up with."

As for satisfying those not-so-innocent late-night desires, this lady adheres to her role as steady girlfriend. Give her kiss on the check and she rolls over and buries her face in the pillow. And yes, she stays fully clothed at all times. Nonetheless, Burrows suggests his new alternative to a full-body pillow or (ugh) blow-up doll could provide late-night comfort for traders, lawyers, or any other single guy in Manhattan who simply works too hard to keep a girlfriend. Speaking of, how long has Burrows been single?

"Long enough to come up with this idea," he sighed.

Read it here.

Blackboard to sync with Facebook

Michael Rees has a good post on a potentially great new Blackboard tool:

This influence Facebook has over the social networking of university students across the world is undoubtedly significant and probably growing. The dominant learning management system used in universities is Blackboard. However by design Blackboard is a closed system within each institution and it would be very difficult to emulate Facebook’s global reach.

It is quite natural therefore that Blackboard should seek to link with Facebook so that students can be notified of significant Blackboard information changes within their favourite Facebook social environment. Thus we now have BBSync, a Facebook application that synchronises information changes from Blackboard. To allow institutions to control which information, if any, finds its way into the potentially public Facebook network Blackboard now provide a building block. This component also monitors and logs the use of the Facebook application.

Read more here.  From the Bb Sync official wiki:

Blackboard Sync^TM is a safe and secure student engagement tool for Facebook that keeps students continually connected to their academic studies and promotes online social learning opportunities.

COURSE UPDATES

Blackboard Sync is an application that delivers Blackboard course information and updates through the Facebook interface to keep students in touch and engaged with their academic studies. >>More

CLASSMATE NETWORK

Blackboard Sync enables students to connect with their classmates through Facebook, thus creating social learning opportunities. >>More

SAFE SYNC

Blackboard Sync offers several options for participation to give the institutions as much control as they need. >>More

Read more here.  It will be interesting to see whether universities embrace this application.  I think many students would find it useful (although some would surely prefer to keep their social space and educational space separate).  However, the bigger question is whether universities are willing effectively sanction the use of Facebook when I know many may be concerned about plagiarism issues through to the fear of sexual predators being present on the site.  I'm hopeful my institution would be willing to use this tool - after all, they let me set up an official Facebook group for first year law students this year, and we have been early adopters of Second Life, Skype and Gmail -  but I imagine we would probably want to wait and see the experience of other institutions before we adopt this tool.  Regardless I intend to let my supervisors know of this application in the next week and begin to gauge their reaction and the likelihood of early adoption.

Building an Australasian Commons

Several of my colleagues at QUT have been working to put together this upcoming conference, Building an Australasian Commons:

CCau is pleased to announce that details for its 2008 national conference, Building an Australasian Commons, have now been finalised.

Building an Australasian Commons will be held on 24 June 2008 at the State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

The event provides an opportunity for those interested in the free internet to come together to exchange ideas, information and inspiration. It brings together experts from Australasia to discuss the latest developments and implementations of Creative Commons in the region. It aims to be an open forum where anyone can voice their thoughts on issues relating to furthering the commons worldwide.

The conference's full program can be ... downloaded here.

Attendance is free and open to all comers. However, places are limited, so if you're interested in attending please register ASAP. Registration closes 10 June. You can download the registration form here.

The conference will be followed on the day by the second CCau ccSalon, a showcase of Creative Commons music, art, film and text from Australia and the region.

Building an Australasian Commons is affiliated with Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons, which is being run by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at the Brisbane Convention Centre from 25-27 June 2008. This conference showcases the latest research into enterprise and innovation along the dynamic boundary between market and non-market, cultural and economic, commercial and community. It features a range of prominent international keynotes, including Henry Jenkins, Mark Deuze and Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield. All Building an Australasian Commons participants are encouraged to attend both conferences.

Teachers go wild

The Washington Post presents a dilemma for young school teachers:

It's almost like Googling someone: Log on to Facebook. Join the Washington, D.C., network. Search the Web site for your favorite school system. And then watch the public profiles of 20-something teachers unfurl like gift wrap on the screen, revealing a sense of humor that can be overtly sarcastic or unintentionally unprofessional -- or both.

One Montgomery County special education teacher displayed a poster that depicts talking sperm and invokes a slang term for oral sex. One woman who identified herself as a Prince William County kindergarten teacher posted a satiric shampoo commercial with a half-naked man having an orgasm in the shower. A D.C. public schools educator offered this tip on her page: "Teaching in DCPS -- Lesson #1: Don't smoke crack while pregnant."

Just to be clear, these are not teenagers, the typical Internet scofflaws and sources of ceaseless discussion about cyber-bullying, sexual predators and so on. These are adults, many in their 20s, who are behaving, for the most part, like young adults.

But the crudeness of some Facebook or MySpace teacher profiles, which are far, far away from sanitized Web sites ending in ".edu," prompts questions emblematic of our times: Do the risque pages matter if teacher performance is not hindered and if students, parents and school officials don't see them? At what point are these young teachers judged by the standards for public officials?

In states including Florida, Colorado, Tennessee and Massachusetts, teachers have been removed or suspended for MySpace postings, and some teachers unions have begun warning members about racy personal Web sites. But as Facebook, with 70 million members, and other social networking sites continue to grow, scrutiny will no doubt spread locally.

The annals of teachers-gone-wild-on-the-Web include once-anonymous people who've done something outlandish with a blog or online video. Many people, especially in the Richmond area, remember high school art teacher Stephen Murmer, fired last year for painting canvasses with his buttocks in images on YouTube.

Of course, many of the tens of thousands of Washington area teachers put social networking sites or personal Web pages to constructive uses. Others push the limits.

Read more here.  This also arguably applies to university/college lecturers/professors as well.  I know I'm always very cautious about anything that is posted by me or others to any of my (far too numerous) social networking profiles.  At times I do feel a little restrained by this, but on the other hand it seems a small price to pay for the privilege of having such a wonderful job. 

no caps? no worries ... lol

A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project considers the e-communication language of teenagers:

As e-mail messages, text messages and social network postings become nearly ubiquitous in the lives of teenagers, the informality of electronic communications is seeping into their schoolwork, a new study says.

Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style sometimes bled into school assignments, according to the study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the College Board’s National Commission on Writing. About half said they sometimes omitted proper punctuation and capitalization in schoolwork. A quarter said they had used emoticons like smiley faces. About a third said they had used text shortcuts like “LOL” for “laugh out loud.”

“I think this is not a worrying issue at all,” said Richard Sterling, emeritus executive director of the National Writing Project, which aims to improve the teaching of writing.

When e-mail shorthand — or for that matter, slang — appears in academic assignments, Professor Sterling said, it is an opportunity for teachers to explain that while such usages are acceptable in some contexts, they do not belong in schoolwork. And as the English language evolves, he said, some e-mail conventions, like starting sentences without a capital letter, may well become accepted practice.

“I think in the future, capitalization will disappear,” said Professor Sterling, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. In fact, he said, when his teenage son asked what the presence of the capital letter added to what the period at the end of the sentence signified, he had no answer.

...

Most teenagers do not think of their e-mail messages, text messages and social network postings as “real writing,” the study found.

More than half of the teenagers surveyed had a profile on a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace, 27 percent had an online journal or blog and 11 percent had a personal Web site. Generally, girls dominated the teenage blogosphere and social networks.

Read more here (from the New York Times).  Jason Lee Miller from WebProNews also doesn't think there is much to worry about in this study:

Nothing makes parents and educators more concerned about the youth than the youth's embracing attitude of new technology; when I was a kid video games were rotting our minds, and these days it's, well, everything. A new survey from Pew Internet says, as usual, grownups may be overreacting.

All that texting, all that abbreviated nonsense you see in cell phone commercials where it seems like teenage girls are speaking an entirely different language, all that damnable leet and those emoticons—teenagers say they're well aware of the difference between electronic communication and formal writing and adjust accordingly.

Think of it this way: I speak differently when visiting my hometown than I do in Lexington, Ky. Maybe you alter your patterns, too.

Most teens (60%), according to Pew, don't think of electronic communications as "writing," which should be a relief to the purists and pessimists out there worried that their children's surest chance for success – good writing skills – is taking a backseat to a memetic and potentially short-lived subculture pidgin language.

...

Sometimes a teen's reality is duplicitous, though. Many didn't think texting and such influenced their formal writing, but did have to admit sometimes their informal styles crept into their formal schoolwork. Although 73% said e-communications had no impact on school writing, just under two-thirds admitted they improvised sometimes by using emoticons (25%), informal punctuation and grammar (50%), and abbreviations like LOL (38%).

...

The good news is that more teens than parents believe good writing is essential to their success. Eight in ten parents think so, but 86% of teens do. Maybe a few parents need a talkin-to instead. 

Read more here.

YouTube university

Ars Technica reports on a recent attempt to teach a university course through YouTube:

The ease of video production has greatly expanded the academic world's ability to communicate, and has been used successfully as a supplement to the classroom experience. Most people who have taught in the college environment, however, would argue that there are limits to what can be accomplished outside the classroom environment. Alex Juhasz, a professor of media studies at Pitzer College, decided to explore those limits in detail by holding a class on YouTube entirely within the confines of YouTube's video and comment systems.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a gimmick or publicity stunt, but Juhasz's analysis of the experience provides a good perspective on what's provided by the classroom experience in an era of distance learning and easily accessed podcasts of entire courses. The key features of a class, as she sees it, involve an interaction among the students, controlled and directed by the professor, that relies on preexisting communications skills.

Juhasz breaks the issues down into a set of what she refers to as "binaries"—tensions between opposites that have to be balanced for proper teaching. One is the tension between entertainment and education. Although she recognizes that a teacher has to entertain her students to a degree, Juhasz suggest that video shifts the balance heavily towards the entertainment end of the spectrum, a shift that has a number of causes and corollaries. One of these is the loss of the balance between amateur and expert. In an entertainment-focused medium, being entertaining is more important than being right, which means the voices of amateurs with excellent video skills can drown out the voices of those who know what they're talking about, including the professor.

The entertainment focus also failed her students in that it limited their ability to take part in class discussions. Normally, student communications take place via written and oral skills, which most college students have extensive exposure to and skill with. The visual culture of YouTube requires a communications skillset that few possess, which limited student contributions to class. YouTube's comment feature, which limits text to 500 characters, was no substitute; as one student put it, it "favors inflammatory content.

...

It's clear that most efforts to take the classroom online will never take such an extreme approach, but the class seems to have provided helpful guidance for those experimenting with shifting the boundaries of the classroom experience. Shift the boundaries too far, and the evaluation may wind up as damning as that of one of Juhasz's students: "as of now, I am still underwhelmed."

Read more here.  And check out Juhasz's YouTube page here.

Mobiles not allowed in New York schools

Ars Technica reports that the New York Supreme Court has upheld a ban on mobile phones in schools:

Kids in New York City's public schools will have to continue doing without their cell phones. Yesterday, New York Supreme Court Judge Angela Mazzarelli denied an attempt to overturn a ban on communication devices in public schools. While she was sympathetic to the plight of concerned parents, the benefits to the ban clearly outweigh the negatives. Parents upset by the ban plan to appeal her ruling.

The 2005 ban came as part of a Disciplinary Code revision, which identified various infractions like bringing prohibited items to school. Included in that list of prohibited items are cell phones, pagers, and other communication devices--all prohibited unless a parent is able to secure permission from the school due to a student's medical requirements. At the time, lawmakers argued that the ban would help cut down on cheating, distractions, and insubordination (among other things), since students were previously using their devices to communicate during tests, not pay attention during class, and otherwise act like a bunch of kids with cell phones in school. Overall, it was an attempt to maintain "order and discipline" during school hours.

Perhaps surprisingly (to some of us, anyway), the kids weren't the only ones to react negatively to the controversial ban. Parents were outraged that their kids could no longer contact them whenever they wanted throughout the day.

...

Mazzarelli wrote in her opinion that she sympathizes with these parents, but pointed out several other rulings that shot down their arguments. One court noted that cell phones had only begun to be widely adopted (what ever did they do before?), and that parents and children had adapted their behavior to be dependent upon them, for example. Mazzarelli also noted that the ban does not infringe on parents' constitutional right to care for their children, because "the right is not absolute and is only afforded constitutional protection in 'appropriate cases.'"

She noted that cell phones have been used for cheating, sexual harassment, prank calls, and intimidation, and that all of these things threaten order during school hours. She also rejected the suggestion that kids be able to carry cell phones but not use them, pointing out that even adults cannot be trusted to turn their phones off (or on silent) during movies and cultural events. "While the vast majority of public school children are respectful and well-behaved, it was not unreasonable for the Chancellor to recognize that if adults cannot be fully trusted to practice proper cell phone etiquette, then neither can children," she wrote.

The decision is yet another blow against the (almost) three-year-long fight to have the ban overturned. But, as some of us know, angry parents are a force to be reckoned with, and they don't plan to back down anytime soon.

Read more here.

Turning the wireless off

The University of Chicago Law School has made the decision to remove internet access from most of its classrooms:

The University of Chicago Law School has removed Internet access in most of its classrooms because of a growing problem of students surfing the Web on laptops during lectures.

"Every teacher underestimates the amount of Internet surfing going on" in his or her classroom, U of C law Dean Saul Levmore said in an interview Thursday.

"Whenever faculty would visit other faculty members' classes, they would come to me and say, `You just won't believe it. It's astounding what happened.'

"But they never believe it's going on in their own class," he said.

In a recent e-mail message to students and faculty, Levmore wrote, "Remarkably, [Internet] usage appears to be contagious if not epidemic" during law classes.

"Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes and within 20 minutes, an entire row is shoe shopping.

"Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated," Levmore added.

...

In his e-mailed announcement Wednesday, Levmore said that U of C law has removed Internet access in most classrooms "in order to ensure the value of the classroom experience."

On Thursday, he said some students object to his new policy.

"There are some who don't like it, who feel it's quite paternalist and so forth," Levmore said. "They are quite vocal.

"There are many who love it, and many who said they would hate it and were very resentful, and now say they love it.... It's gratifying to hear about people who benefit from tough love."

Some students also thought Levmore should have consulted them more about the move.

But Levmore said the question is, "How do you best learn? That's for the faculty to decide."

Whether to allow computers at all in the classroom is a continuing debate in law schools.

When Levmore proposed to the faculty in early March that the school might cut off Internet access in most classrooms, some faculty responded that computers should be banned, he said.

Some professors believe that students who take notes on laptops during lectures interfere with their own learning.

"Back in the day when we took notes by hand," Levmore recalled, "some people took fewer notes and learned more."

He said some law professors already have "no computer" rules during class.

But he said some students convincingly argued that note taking on laptops is a help to them.

The heart of his decision to prevent Web surfing in class, he said, is that the students "are going to go out to law firms and other settings where they're going to miss these years where they had opportunities for human interaction and contemplating ideas.

"And that's partly what the classroom is for. They don't realize the value of what they're being distracted from. That's really what I believe in most."

Levmore teaches torts to 1st-year students. He said he walks up and down the aisles, which could limit Internet surfing by students.

But he said a common practice was students sending e-mail to each other about what to say in class.

And "for some students, checking e-mail every 15 minutes is like breathing for us," he added.

..

Levmore also said he discovered while researching the subject "how offensive it often is when phone calls are taken in public and when Blackberry and other e-mail devices are consulted during meetings."

So in his e-mail message to the school, he promised himself "that I will no longer check my Blackberry under the table at university meetings."

So far, he said Thursday, he has stuck to his promise.

Read more here (from Chicago Daily Law Bulletin).  This move has understandably attracted quite a bit of attention in the blogosphere.  At The Volokh Conspiracy Ilya Somin was torn:

I am of two minds on this. On one hand, law students are adults. They should be able to decide for themselves whether surfing the net has greater value to them than using class time to listen to what the professor is saying. Indeed, if a high percentage of students are surfing regularly, that may be an indication that the professor isn't doing such a great job of teaching.

On the other hand, there are potential negative externalities from in-class surfing. If a lot of students are doing it, and therefore not contributing to class discussion, that will reduce the value of the class for their classmates, not just themselves. This point suggests that there may be some merit to the University of Chicago policy. For now, however, I'm not going to change my own live and let live approach to net surfing in the classroom.

Read it here.  However, perhaps the most interesting (and honest) critique came from Geoffrey Rapp at PrawfsBlawg:

It's Not You, It's Me

Maroon-colored irony dripped from the coverage over the past few weeks of the University of Chicago's decision to cut off wireless internet access in its law school classrooms.  A school known for its faith in markets and preference for individual rather than collective solutions to legal and policy problems embraced a top-down, market-rejecting approach to classroom management.  A certain amount of paternalism comes out in the school's justifications for the policy:  Dean Levmore explained, "the question is, 'How do you best learn? That's for the faculty to decide.'"

At the same time, some of the other statements made about the wireless internet "ban" (a partial ban at best, since students with iphones or broadband will still be able to e-mail/facebook/above-the-law to their hearts' content) reveal what I think is the true reason the faculty targeted student internet use: Frankly, it ticked them off. 

Professors at U of C (and elsewhere) think what they have to say is important. Professors think (and should think, or they would have trouble doing their jobs) that listening to what professors have to say really is the best use of law student time.   And things have gotten to the point that you don't have to be a "hip young pRAWf" to sense that the student clicking furiously during another student's question isn't taking notes on that question.

As more and more law schools consider and embrace wireless deactivation (or the even more draconian laptop ban), I'd urge them to be honest.  Telling students you know what's best for them -- whether we're talking about attendance policies or wireless -- only gets you so far.  Be honest, and admit that you're banning wireless access because the plugged-in student is usually a disengaged one and has sucked the fun out of the classroom experience.   Students are more likely to accept a top-down policy change if it's justified based on faculty morale than student learning.

Read it here.  I've blogged a few times about whether laptops should be banned from university classrooms (see here, here and here) and my position remains basically the same.  In my view, laptops and internet access are largely a distraction that inevitably has a negative impact upon student learning.  However, students are adults and have the right to take responsibility for their own learning.  Therefore I would never ban laptops or remove internet access from a class I was taking even though I strongly believe that for most students they would be better off without a computer and the internet in front of them while they are trying (or pretending) to learn.  Besides, given that I frequently take my laptop to meetings and read emails, work on documents and even just surf the net, it would be totally hypocritical for me to ban laptops or remove internet access from a class I was taking.  At least the Dean of Chicago Law School is trying to practice what he preaches when he said that he will no longer check his Blackberry under the table at university meetings.

Think before you post

Preston Williams, a staff writer for The Washington Post, reports on a student whose Facebook status update has had lasting repercussions:

In an Instant, Message Has a Lasting Impact

On his final day of winter break from Wake Forest University, Lucas Caparelli sat on the couch in his father's girlfriend's basement in Northern Virginia, surfing the Internet and messaging friends. The Chargers-Colts NFL playoff game offered background noise as Caparelli's fingers wandered the keyboard on the lazy yet fretful Sunday afternoon of Jan. 13.

Caparelli, a former All-Met kick returner from Robinson Secondary School, had found the adjustment to Wake Forest's football team much more seamless than to the esteemed North Carolina private school's social scene. He was not looking forward to returning to a place where, as a working-class public-school kid and marginal college student, he felt uncomfortable amid those he perceived as pedigreed climbers.

Using a Wake Forest-issued laptop, Caparelli banged out two sentences on his Facebook page, underneath his name and beside his picture, in the "What are you doing right now?" section.

Lucas Caparelli "recommends not going to class on Wednesday because he is going to blow up campus. For those left standing he will have an uzi locked and loaded in his bag."

Elsewhere on his page on the social networking Web site, at 3:04 p.m., under "Lucas Caparelli's Notes," he invited the school to perform a certain lewd act on him, capitalizing "MY" in between the expletives, and wrote a short poem in a style he said he patterned after the rapper Eminem:

"tomorrow I return to the hell known as wake, scares me so much that in my boots I'm starting to shake, can't find no good, a place with no pleasure, getting stabbed in the face is about the fun you can measure, surrounded by arrogant, rich, spoiled little brats, didn't earn a [expletive] thing, everything was laid in their laps, these cocky bastards are spreading like a cancer, not infecting me though because maybe I'll transfer"

The Uzi "status" posting stayed up for about 90 minutes, until Caparelli heeded the instant-message pleas of Wake Forest teammate Joe Birdsong and former Robinson teammate Ali Sayed to remove the inflammatory statement for fear of it being taken seriously. Caparelli barely gave his removed musing another thought.

Others did. A concerned Wake Forest student already had alerted campus police.

When Caparelli flew to Winston-Salem, N.C., the next day, he soon learned that impulsive boasts of pending campus violence, even ones you have no intention of carrying out, can result in a five-hour ride back to Virginia in the back seat of an unmarked campus police cruiser.

A week later, at a campus judicial hearing, Caparelli was suspended from school for the spring semester. Forsyth County (N.C.) District Attorney Tom Keith plans to review the case to determine whether he will pursue charges.

"He's out of custody, he's out of state, so he's not an immediate threat," Keith said last month.

Now, Caparelli is a former division I football player who wonders if he ever can shed that stigma of violence, living in a state about to mark the one-year anniversary of the shooting spree at Virginia Tech that killed 32 students and faculty members, perpetrated by another alienated kid from Fairfax County whose tortured writings foreshadowed his act.

The difference is, unlike Virginia Tech gunman Seung Hui Cho, who left behind a trail of warning signs, Caparelli has no such trail. He said he never has fired a gun, that he owns no weapons, "not even a pocketknife." He was not considered an angel at Robinson, but he was no troublemaker, either. He sometimes worked as the announcer for junior varsity football games, and he took a class that entailed looking after preschool children.

"He was very aggressive on the football or lacrosse field, but he certainly did not bring that into the hallways," Robinson Principal Dan Meier said. "He was a fine young man. He was motivated to get to the college level and he was hardworking."

In his first extensive interviews since the incident, the 20-year-old Caparelli, with close-cropped dark hair that gives his active eyebrows and deep-set Tootsie Roll-colored eyes plenty of leeway, comes across as relentlessly contrite, and he is running out of self-critical adjectives to describe what he did.

Read more here.

"The Professor as Open Book"

The New York Times looks at how university lecturers/professors are using social networks to connect and engage with their students:

IT is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor on the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume or can’t get enough of Chaka Khan.

Yet professors of all ranks and disciplines are revealing such information on public, national platforms: blogs, Web pages, social networking sites, even campus television.

When scholars were recently given the chance to refute student criticism posted on the Web site RateMyProfessors.com, a cult-hit television series, “Professors Strike Back,” was born. The show, which has professors responding on camera to undergraduate gripes such as “boring beyond belief,” made its debut in October on mtvU, a 24-hour network broadcast to more than 7.5 million students on American college campuses.

“It’s our dominant show driving half of the traffic to mtvU now,” said Stephen Friedman, general manager of the network. “It gets more than our music premieres.”

There was a time when professors did not outrank music premieres on television. They were buttoned-up authority figures, like the legendary fictional Professor Kingsfield, portrayed by John Houseman in “The Paper Chase.” The personal lives of professors could only be imagined from the sparse clues of clothing, handwriting and the contents of offices.

These days, the clues are usually digital and are broad invitations to get to know the person behind the Ph.D. It is not uncommon for professors’ Web pages to include lists of the books they would take to a deserted island, links to their favorite songs from bygone eras, blog posts about their children, entries “written” by their dogs and vacation photographs.

While many professors have rushed to meet the age of social networking, there are some who think it is symptomatic of an unfortunate trend, that a professor’s job today is not just to impart knowledge, but to be an entertainer.

Certainly, professors have embraced the Internet since its earliest days, using it as a scholarly avenue of communication, publication and debate. Now it is common for many to reveal more personal information that has little connection to their work.

...

Nate Ackerman, a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, whose Web page includes information about his wrestling achievements and photos of him with his cats, agreed. “It’s better when your professor’s human,” he said.

Some scholars suggest that the need to present oneself so chummily is indicative of student demands. Sam Gosling, a psychologist and an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who has about 300 students on his MySpace page, said there are students today who think professors are not doing their jobs unless they convey information in zany, interactive ways.

It is something he sees reflected in student evaluations and something that anyone can observe on RateMyProfessors, where students critique classes with comments like “bring a pillow.”

...

There are many reasons professors have embraced the Web and other media to reveal more of themselves. Mr. Gosling, whose studies include personality and virtual environments, noted that people are far less formal in all areas of life. “Twenty years ago, many fewer professors would have been wearing jeans and sneakers to work,” he said.

It is also possible, he added, that some professors are doing online what they have long done in their offices: displaying family photos and personal artifacts, decorating with posters, literally keeping their doors open.

Mr. Friedman of mtvU said it is the nature of the age. “I think it’s part of this increased transparency,” he said.

He acknowledged that watching the uninhibited scholars responding to student criticism on “Professors Strike Back” is “almost as if your therapist, who you know nothing about, is going to come and respond.”

“It feels as if they are breaking some kind of wall,” he said.

And yet, in some ways, the online and on-screen chumminess may not cross over beyond those realms. A number of professors said the most disarming thing of all to students is when they encounter a professor not on a Web page, but in the real world.

When a student spotted Mr. Gosling on a street near campus, he said, “She looked at me in, like, horror. Like, ‘Wait a minute, you have a life?’ The idea that I would continue to exist — it was sort of a violation of her expectations.”

Read more here.  I agree that using social networking and other sites is an effective way to humanise the lecturer/professor, but there does need to be limits.  I use my blog, Twitter and a range of social networking sites and am more than happy for my students to connect with me through those sites, but I don't feel that my life is - or should be - a totally open book.  It is for that reason that I am always careful about what I make available on public sites.  For a while I also used to refuse Facebook friend requests from students, but I eventually gave in and accepted friend requests from students.  That said, those students have never been able to see my whole Facebook profile - while I used to give them access to my "Limited Profile", the new Facebook privacy settings have allowed me to have a special "Student" grouping with its own privacy settings.  The reason for granting limited access is not that I have any big secrets I'm trying to hide, it is simply that I don't see any compelling reason for giving students total access to every part of my life.  I find it hard to annunciate any justification for this position, but I nonetheless feel it is appropriate that there are limits as to what I share with my students on these social networking sites.

Facebook = cheating?

I have been meaning to blog about Canada's Ryerson University threatening to expel a student on the basis that his study group on Facebook might encourage cheating for the past week or so, but haven't got around to it until now.  In case you haven't heard of the controversy, PC World offers this summary:

A Canadian university has instilled a culture of fear by threatening to expel a student for cheating because he set up an online study group on Facebook, critics said this week.

Toronto's Ryerson University threatened to expel first-year computer engineering student Chris Avenir last week, arguing that his study group on the Facebook networking site might encourage cheating.

Ryerson decided to lift the expulsion threat, but Avenir will get zero credits for the course work discussed on the Facebook forum last autumn, and the university has put a disciplinary notice on his record.

Shortsighted or Straightforward?

Canadian media analyst Jesse Hirsh said Ryerson's actions send the wrong message to students, most of whom spend a lot of their time on the Internet.

"It sends a clear signal to all the kids that innovation is not only frowned upon but will be punished and that if you use emerging technologies in innovative ways, you risk being expelled from the school," he said.

But James Norrie, director of the School of Information Technology Management at Ryerson, said on Thursday the issue was one of accountability, whether online or offline.

"This is nothing to with technology, how can it possibility create a climate of fear?" he said.

Digital Study Group

Members of the Facebook study group -- Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions -- said the group was set up to help each other with homework assignments and to understand class lectures and had nothing to do with cheating.

Ryerson, however, said the group offered the potential for cheating on a large scale.

Read more here.  I find this story extraordinary.  I actively encourage my students to work in groups - whether in person or online - and I have even created a Facebook group for my first year law students this year.  Study groups are not only a great way for students to learn, but it also gives them valuable social contacts, which is an important part of what university life is all about.  Furthermore, as the PC World story points out, penalising a student for using Facebook in this way serves only discourage students from engaging with new and innovative technology, whereas we should be promoting a culture of experimentation and innovation in our students.

Barack Obama's race

The mainstream media and the blogosphere have been obsessing over Barack Obama's speech on race this week.  However, rather than chiming in to the debate or linking to some of the commentary, I thought I'd highlight a few interesting posts that approach race and Obama's speech from a sightly different perspective. 

First, is Slate's discovery of an Obama interview in 1990 for a feature in the Chicago Reporter about the lag in minority hiring by top Chicago law firms:

 

Second, is John W Dean's piece for FindLaw's Writ, which wonders whether Obama's speech revealed him to be too intellectual to be President:

With his speech addressing race in America, Obama has done something that few politicians are willing to do: speak with compelling intellectual honesty. Rather than fuzzy-up difficult and troubling questions about race, he confronted them directly. Rather than avoiding issues that are typically ignored, he brought them forward for public discussion. Most strikingly, he did this with nuance, great tact, and conspicuous intelligence.

Many commentators were struck by the level of erudition Senator Obama employed in his speech. For example, Newsweek's Howard Fineman asked, "Did the blockheads understand it?" Not wanting to sound elitist, Howard quickly added that of course, everyone is a bit of a blockhead. I do not know if everyone understood the speech or not, but I do know that it is a pleasure to have a candidate running for the highest office in the land who is not only not trying to pretend to be dumb and inarticulate but rather willingly showing he is, in fact, smart as hell.

Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech was not unlike his insightful and somewhat erudite books - Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope - with one large exception: Relatively few people will read Obama's books but many have been (or may be) exposed to his historic speech.

Computers have made it rather simple to determine the intelligence or grade level of a speech by measuring it with the Flesch-Kincaid test, which is found on the Tools/Options menu of Microsoft Word. This widely-employed measurement device determines the degree of difficulty of the written (and spoken) word.

Enterprising linguists and others have applied the test to a wide variety of material. For instance, the folks at youDictionary have tested the inaugural addresses of presidents. They discovered that no president since Woodrow Wilson has come close to delivering speeches pitched at a 12^th grade level. Bush II's first inaugural address was at a 7.5 grade level, which ranked him near Eisenhower's second address (7.5), Nixon's first (7.6), LBJ's only (7.0), and FDR's fourth (8.1). Clinton's two addresses, by contrast, scored at the 9th grade level (9.4 and 8.8 respectively).

I tested Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech and it scores at a 10.5 grade level, which by current standards is in the stratosphere. But maybe he was being too smart to win the presidency.

Read more here.

And finally, here is the provocative YouTube video - Is Obama Wright? - that a low-level staff member in John McCain’s political department was suspended for circulating:

GW Law Revue presents Abuse of Expression

There are nine entertaining videos from the George Washington Law School Law Revue - Abuse of Expression - available on YouTube here:

Politics and the teaching of law

Legal Eagle has a fascinating post on ideology, law and teaching:

As I am a university lecturer, I was interested to read about the Young Liberals’ campaign to “out” left-wing lecturers. That seems to miss the point to me: it’s a bit unpleasantly reminiscent of a McCarthyist witch hunt.

I have to say that in law school I had a variety of lecturers, from open Marxists to known advisers to the Liberal Party. I had no problem with that. One of my best friends at high school was a neo-Marxist, my other best friend was a Tory. They didn’t like one another much, but I liked them both a lot. I’m still friends with both.

The problem is not that a lecturer has a political leaning. The real problem arises in two situations:

1. When a lecturer is sarcastic and vicious to those who disagree with his or her point of view.
2. When a lecturer allows his or her particular view to skew what is taught away from the curriculum.

...

Teaching is not a personal soapbox - she should make her own soapbox blog if that’s what she wants to do. That’s a private affair. Indeed, one of the reasons why I am anonymous on this blog is because I don’t want my students to know my political views and to feel constrained by them in some way.

So perhaps what is needed is not a McCarthyist witchhunt, but a clear policy that students come from diverse backgrounds and have diverse points of view which should be encouraged by teachers, whatever their own personal leanings. After all, part of the way in which we learn is by taking into account opposing views and criticisms, difficult and painful as that may be sometimes.

Read more here (from The Legal Soapbox).  I couldn't agree more.

Legal education blogs

Law X.0 takes stock of some legal education blogs:

Hosted by the Elon University Law School, the Center for Engaged Learning in the Law Blog "is intended to contribute to the discourse on teaching and learning in law, from the inspirational to the whimsical, to the mechanical. It includes the varying perspectives of teachers, administrators, learners and practicioners." See our earlier Law Librarian Blog posts covering this growing body of resourses:

• On Reforming Legal Education: Cheatsheets, Required Readings, Etc.
• A Quick Look at Best Practices for Legal Education Blog
• Transforming Legal Education: Learning and Teaching the Law in the Early Twenty-First Century

Read more here.

Law blogging and the academy

J Robert Brown Jr attempts to analyse the role of law faculty blogs in legal scholarship:

Brown , J. Robert Robert, "Of Empires, Independents, and Captives: Law Blogging, Law Scholarship, and Law School Rankings" (February 16, 2008). U Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-04 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1094806

Abstract: Law faculty blogs have been around for much of the new millennium. This article examines these blogs, including their role in the legal scholarship continuum and their growing influence of legal community.

The paper begins with an evolutionary study, noting that law blogging originally began in a state of nature, with few rules governing frequency or content of posts. Increased competition and the emergence of Empire and Captive law blogs, however, has resulted in a growing sense of order on the legal blogosphere.

Perhaps as a result, the influence of law blogs has increased. The paper relies on a list of approximately 130 law faculty blogs and studies the frequency of law review and case citations. The numbers have been undergoing significant growth. The growth is particularly noteworthy given the difficulty in searching for material posted on the Internet.

The paper also studies the impact of law blogging on rankings in the US News. In the short term, blogging can disproportionately benefit law schools and faculty outside the top tier. Blogs can enhance the reputation of the sponsoring faculty member, enable them to route around the biases inherent in the system of law review placements and SSRN downloads, permit a level of participation in the legal debate that might otherwise not be available, and facilitate the dissemination of information important to alumni and other constituencies. Most critically, however, they represent a cost effective mechanism for improving a law school's reputational rankings and, perforce, its overall rankings in the infamous US News and World Report.

Much of the data used in the paper is derived from a list of 130 law faculty blogs, something paired down to the top 50 law faculty blogs. The top 50 was determined based upon a number of ranking metrics. These lists are included as an Appendix to this article.

Beware the angry law student

As Techdirt says, when law students angry ... lawsuits get filed:

A year ago, we wrote about a popular law student message board/forum called AutoAdmit that was making some female law students upset, as they claimed sexist messages on those boards were making it difficult for them to find a job. The reasoning didn't make that much sense. The messages, while certainly crude, seemed unlikely to be the sort that would keep an employer from hiring. They basically just made comments about the women's appearances. There was no evidence at all that the postings kept the women from getting jobs. Not surprisingly, though, considering that we're talking about law students, it didn't take long for lawsuits to be filed, including one against a Penn State law student named Anthony Ciolli, who was an editor of AutoAdmit, but had no direct involvement with the content that upset the women. In November, Ciolli was dropped from the lawsuit, but not before all of the attention had cost him his job at a high-paying law firm.

Once again, given that we're talking about a bunch of lawyers, it will probably surprise no one to discover that Ciolli has now filed a lawsuit against the two women who had sued him originally, charging them with libel for falsely dragging his name into the mess. The whole thing seems like a giant disaster that's only likely to get worse before it works itself out. So far, the lesson seems to be that some lawyers are pretty thin-skinned and likely to file lawsuits over just about anything. But, perhaps we already knew that. Perhaps we should be happy that they're just filing lawsuits against each other, rather than bothering everyone else with unnecessary lawsuits.

Read it here.

Some new blogs

This will probably be the only post for today as tonight I am trying to finalise the set up of a new blog focusing on Copyright in the Digital Age (which will be both a teaching and public blog).

But while I'm blogging about new blogs, check out Surviving Law @ QUT - a new blog I have set up that is written by and for first year law students at the Queensland University of Technology on their experiences as first year law students.  Check it out here.

JuicyCampus.com ... only in America

The Washington Post's Marc Fisher describes an entry about a University of Virginia (U-Va.) student on JuicyCampus.com, a website that urges college students to "give us the juice" anonymously:

[it] names [her] and says she "will sleep with any guy." This sort of post has given JuicyCampus -- which features message boards for 50 colleges, including the recent additions of U-Va. and the Naval Academy in this area -- instant notoriety and the sadly resulting success.

The subject of that posting, a junior at the Charlottesville campus, didn't know that a thousand people had read the slur against her until I told her about it.

"Initially, I wasn't too concerned about it, although I did get angrier the more I thought about it," she says. "Everyone I know feels that the Web site merely serves as an outlet for petty and immature people who have nothing better to do with their time."

Not wishing to be associated with sexual sleaziness for the rest of her life, she contacted JuicyCampus asking that her name be removed.

Nothing doing. JuicyCampus guarantees anonymity to those who slime others, but disavows any obligation to those who are maligned on its pages.

From the site's FAQ:

" Is the site really anonymous?"

"There is no way for someone using the site to find out who you are. And we at JuicyCampus . . . prefer not to know who you are."

" How do I remove a comment I posted?"

"You can't. Once it's out there, it's out there."

The article goes on to look at the legality and morality of the site:

If the offending post is about you, too bad. "JuicyCampus does not remove content," the site says. "We encourage you to shift your point of view. . . ."

Legally, JuicyCampus is protected by a 1996 law that shields Web site operators from responsibility for nasty, defamatory or false material their readers might post.

And morally? The founder, Matt Ivester, a 2005 Duke University graduate who launched the site in August, delights in telling interviewers that his business is just "a fun place to hang out" and bears no responsibility for any slanders.

But you'd expect that of the creator of such a business.

While it is legal under US law, it perhaps surprising that many students seem to accept that they can't really do anything about being named on the site:

"I haven't heard any cry for action," says Daniel Colbert, executive editor of the campus Cavalier Daily and author of an editorial urging students not to post schoolmates' names on the site. "I'm in the journalism industry, so we tend to believe you should be responsible for what you say, but a lot of people in our generation don't have that idea. They don't expect that something that's published should be true."

"Students are more used to this kind of information being out there than the parent generation," says Lauren Tilton, president of U-Va.'s student council. "It's the nature of the Internet."

The student government at Pepperdine University asked administrators to block the site from school computers, and students at Texas Christian University appealed to advertisers not to buy space on the site. But at most colleges where the site has exploded in popularity, deans recommend combating bad speech with good speech, or just ignoring the site and hoping it will go away.

"We don't want to and we can't inhibit speech," says Pat Lampkin, U-Va.'s vice president for student affairs. "Do we condone what's on the site? Absolutely not. We see the harm things like this cause. We'd rather see a discussion about owning your own words."

Read more here. 

It is worth noting that the 1996 law that the article refers, s 230 of the Communications Decency Act, has no Australian equivalent.  As such, if such a site was set up in Australia soliciting juicy gossip from Australian university students, the site would find itself in legal trouble.

Update: I just noticed this post on the Juicy Campus Blog (note the "boring" bit added to the end):

Hate isn't Juicy.  A letter from the Founder of JuicyCampus.com

Hey Juicy Campers,

Thanks so much for your support over the past few months! We’ve grown bigger and faster than we ever expected, and we owe it all to you.

You’ve posted thousands and thousands of messages spanning a whole wide range of juicy topics. There are hilarious posts about drunken antics, helpful posts about classes and professors, and thought provoking posts about race, gender and sexuality. As you know, the site is pretty entertaining now!

Unfortunately, it hasn’t all been fun and games. Some of the things that have been posted have been mean-spirited, and we have received emails from people claiming to have been defamed on the site. Our hope for the site has always been that JuicyCampus would be a place for fun, lighthearted gossip, rather than a place to tear down people or groups.

We want you to be able to post about the topics that are most important, interesting and entertaining to you. We want you to share truthful stories about the hilarious things that you and your friends are doing on the weekends. We want you to post about the real-life scandals that are happening in Student Government, and in the Administration. We want you to give your opinions on the best and worst classes and professors. We want you to make JuicyCampus Juicy, not hateful.

So, we appeal to you to keep JuicyCampus the fun place that it was meant to be. Please consider whether your post is entertaining or just mean, and whether using a person’s full name really adds value, or if it would be just as juicy as a blind item. Remember that words can hurt, and the people you are talking about are real. Ultimately, JuicyCampus is created by our users, and we ask that you please take this responsibility seriously.

Keep it Juicy,

Matt Ivester
Founder, JuicyCampus.com


A (boring) note from our lawyers:

All users of JuicyCampus.com are subject to JuicyCampus.com’s Terms and Conditions, which can be read here. 

Please be advised that Juicy Campus is not the author of the posts that appear on the site. Rather, Juicy Campus is the provider of an interactive computer service. As such, pursuant to 47 U.S.C. Section 230, Juicy Campus is immune from liability arising from content posted by users.

Read it here.