Federal Court Opinion on Intelligent Design

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article on Judge John E. Jones III's opinion. Read the 139 page opinion here.

White Paper on Copyright Issues in Campus Setting

The American Association of Universities has published a white paper designed to help colleges and universities navigate copyright issues. Campus Copyright Rights and Responsibilities: A Basic Guide to Policy Considerations presents information on copyright law and how it applies to traditional published works, digital materials, educational materials produced on campus, and library usage of copyrighted material.

U.S. Justice Department notifies Southern Illinois U of intent to sue over minority scholar programs

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the Justice Department has found that Southern Illinois University has "engaged in a patter or practice of intentional discrimination against whites, nonpreferred minorities, and males" in its operation of three fellowship programs reserved for minority-group members or women. The Justice Department has informed SIU that it will file suit if a consent decree under which SIU would agree to open the programs up to all students.

N.J. Students Ordered to Take Down Blogs

Students at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, New Jersey have been told to remove personal postings about the school or themselves from Web sites like myspace.com or xanga.com even if the posts were made from home computers. The school says it is out of concern for the students' safety.

An article from Yahoo News-AP has some quotes from Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney at EFF, and Frank Askin, a constitutional law expert at Rutgers.

But will they let him keep his "fisher.edu" email address?

The Boston Globe reports that Fisher College has expelled the president of Fisher's Student Government for comments made in posts at the popular Facebook.com web site. According to the college's charge letter, Walker "conspired to and damaged the reputation of a campus police officer.

In order to validate accounts at Facebook.com, a college student or alum is required to have a valid email provided by the school.

University sued for "failing to prevent hazing"...

Plymount State was sued in a wrongful death action arising from an automobile accident that allegedly occured during a sorority pledge activity. The student was riding in a SUV and was 1 of 10 people in a vehicle designed to seat five passengers safely.

The lawsuit said the student driving the SUV was "driving erratically to scare the pledges," who reportedly were blindfolded in the rear of the vehicle. The conspiracy charges allege the women planned to haze the pledges and engaged in harmful activity. Plymouth State University is also a defendant in the case for "failing to prevent hazing activities."

Yahoo News

This fall more colleges are offering music licensing to their students

A good Chronicle of Higher Education article on the current pros and cons of offering a music service to students in an effort to minimize illegal file sharing.

"More than 50 campuses have signed deals with online-music providers, up from about 20 last fall."

"A survey conducted last fall at the University of Rochester, which has offered Napster for more than a year, suggests that many students still see it as an accompaniment, not an alternative, to pirating music. While 58 percent of the respondents said they had used Napster, 56 percent said they still used peer-to-peer programs, including KaZaA, LimeWire, and Direct Connect, to download material illegally."

U.S. colleges struggle to combat identity theft

Good article in the Washington Post on all the problems colleges and universities are having keeping their databases secure.

Fifth Circuit Rules Against Online Dating Service

White Buffalo, operator of LonghornSingles.com didn't appreciate the University of Texas refusing to deliver its spam directed at students attending the school and sued. In its ruling this week, the 5th Circuit refused to overturn a trial judge's opinion siding with the university. It concluded that the Can-Spam Act was never intended to block an Internet service provider, even one that is part of a government-run university, from filtering out unwanted commercial solicitations.

An update to this post from last March.

CNET News.com

Lawsuit allowed in MIT suicide case

A Massachusetts court has decided to allow a wrongful death suit to proceed against MIT psychiatrists and two student administrators who are not mental health professionals. The judge did dismiss claims against the university itself and dismissed some claims against the MIT employees. For example, the court said MIT could not be held liable for breachof contract because statements in MIT brochures about mental health services are too vague to constitute an enforceable contract.

MIT is facing one other lawsuit involving a student suicide, that of Julie Carpenter, who ingested cyanide in 2001. Her family says MIT is responsible because officials failed to address her harassment by a fellow student.

Boston Globe