juicy campus

This past Sunday, the Columbia College Student Council held a meeting to propose banning the Web site juicycampus.com from Columbia’s server. CCSC committed an egregious error in proposing action on a matter so clearly out of its purview and demonstrated bad judgment in its overall treatment of the issue.

I’d like to speak about the more general issue of anonymous speech, both online and off. Change most effectively comes at a personal level. You can certainly wave your hand and dismiss the hateful things posted on anonymous Web sites or scribbled on bathroom walls as nothing you should worry about, but would you be so cavalier if it were you being accused of splurging on hookers and blow?

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.