Posted by Eugene Volokh:
University of California Dropping Objection to "The Dark Side of UCSB" Web Site
[1]The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education reports the
outcome of a controversy I noted a while back:
The University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) has abandoned
an attempt to force the owner of a website called The Dark Side of
UCSB from using the letters "UCSB" in his web address. UCSB
threatened Mr. James Baron, the site's owner, with criminal
sanctions if he did not change the site's address. The Foundation
for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) protested UCSB's
unconstitutional threats, and on the very same day that UCSB
received FIRE's letter, the university notified Mr. Baron that it
would pursue the matter no further.
"We are relieved that UCSB has come to its senses and realized that
it may not prohibit those who might criticize the university from
using the university's name," remarked FIRE President David French.
"UCSB twice told Mr. Baron, whose website is critical of the
university, that it was a crime to use the UCSB name without the
university's permission. It is simply absurd for a public
university to claim that it cannot be criticized by name."
Mr. Baron created www.thedarksideofucsb.com to draw public
attention to what he and others see as a dangerous and lawless
campus culture at UCSB. The website criticizes USCB administrators
for not doing enough to change this culture. In November 2004, UCSB
sent Mr. Baron two notices claiming that he had violated California
law by including the letters "UCSB" in the web address, and that
using the letters without permission could make him "guilty of a
misdemeanor" under Section 92000 of the California Education Code.
Asked about the university's actions in an article in UCSB's campus
newspaper, administrator Margaret Clow claimed that the university
was concerned that Internet users would believe The Dark Side of
UCSB was an official UCSB website. . . .
References
1. http://thefire.org/
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