Dishing the dirt: Juicy Campus might not be intellectual, doesn't mean colleges should block it

(Juicy Campus might not be the most intellectual Web site, but that doesn’t mean colleges should block it)

UNC was right to state that it had no plans to block the Juicy Campus Web site from its Internet server.Censorship should not be UNC’s policy.

UNC must commit fully to safeguarding free speech after Tennessee State University and Hampton University both blocked the Web site from their Internet service.

Juicy Campus admittedly provides little intellectual exchange. And sometimes it is used as a forum for students to insult each other.

This is wrong.

UNC students should have the decency and class to avoid trashy gossip on Juicy Campus and focus on more important things, like studying for finals and dominating other schools in basketball.

Unfortunately, some of us don’t.

Some students clearly can’t resist accessing Juicy Campus to spread the dirt — true or not — about their classmates. They’re immature and should exercise greater restraint.

But it isn’t the University’s place to be the thought police on this — or any — issue.

This isn’t a legal concern, so there’s no pressing need for the site to be blocked. Juicy Campus and the University servers aren’t legally responsible for comments because Internet service providers, very broadly defined by law, are largely immune from libel charges.

So it’s a moral issue.

Universities might block access to protect students from harmful comments.

This is heartwarming but misguided.

We don’t feel comfortable with universities weighing in on moral issues and imposing restrictions on the right to free speech.

If some comments are libelous, fine. Issue a subpoena to Juicy Campus for the offender’s identity.

This is much less restrictive of free speech than blocking the entire site for anyone accessing the Internet through a university server.

We’re not condoning the use of Juicy Campus — unless you just can’t resist…

Yes, the Web site can be harmful, but so are many other Web sites out there. Censoring them because of content concerns is a frightening course of action that the University is right not to follow.