A popular gossip Web site triggered a rare open forum at Sunday’s Columbia College Student Council meeting, where council members and their constituents discussed the possibility of banning the site from the Columbia server.
Despite a general consensus among attendees that the posts on www.juicycampus.com are offensive, two basic camps soon became apparent. Those who support the ban argued that the site promotes hate speech that wouldn’t be tolerated if it were written and physically displayed. But opponents said the ban would limit First Amendment rights and provoke a domino effect of similar bans.
After quoting a post that championed Hitler’s genocide, Jessica Aldridge, CC ’08, said, “If I were a member of the gay male community, and I already felt ostracized or uncomfortable with my orientation, I might be tempted to bring a gun to school and shoot all of my fellow students” after seeing this Web site.
“This perpetuates suicide, it perpetuates violence,” Aldridge said.
Brendan Charney, CC ’08 and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union at Columbia, later reversed Aldridge’s point, saying that the site may be an “outlet” for a student who might otherwise express his views on a bathroom stall or turn violent.
The site, which Michelle Diamond, CC ’08 and CCSC president, said was launched by a Duke affiliate, has since been banned by at least Duke, Pepperdine, Princeton, Cornell, and Boston University, according to Aldridge.
Many posts on the site include homophobic and racist language, as well as nude images. The site includes subcategories for faculty, athletes, and Greek life.
When Diamond took a straw poll regarding the ban, a slight majority of 25 out of the 40 or so audience members raised their hands in favor of it. The majority of council members also spoke in support of the ban.
Alidad Damooei, CC ’09 and CCSC vice president for policy, spoke on behalf of a student who told him that Juicy Campus isn’t searchable on Google, and that outlawing it could cause searchable gossip sites to spring up.
“It’s the devil we know versus the devil we don’t know,” Damooei said.
Sue Yang, CCSC 2010 vice president, countered that if employers want to find the site, they can, with or without Google.
While also rejecting the ban out of principle, John Davisson, CC ’08 and former editor in chief of Spectator, said that the ban would “treat the symptom rather than the problem.”
Glenn Thompson, CC ’08 and CCSC vice president for communications, agreed that “we can’t block this Web site and pretend that it doesn’t exist,” and to do so would be a “fairy tale” because students could still access the site off campus.
Others responded that the ban would still make it much more difficult for students to get to the site and indicate Columbia’s symbolic dismissal of Juicy Campus’ philosophy.
Nathan Morgante, CC ’09 and a representative of the group Free Culture, made the case that students are calling for the ban because the site hits so close to home. But if the principle were applied impartially, “Where would it end?” He said, “I personally find the Republican National Convention Web site offensive, but does that mean it should be banned?”
Although Aldridge said, “I personally feel threatened,” Charney claimed that there’s a worse danger to bear in mind.
“I really am viscerally afraid at the abuse of authority that is actually being considered here—censorship, not in Communist China, but at a University that depends on freedom of speech,” Charney said.