"The Electronic Bathroom Wall"

First of all, I stole this title from the first year Dean of Students at Colgate University as she uses this phrase to describe the onoing gossip columns that circulate the internet about different universities' campus life. Well, I found this article on Ebsco Host and refuse to post the different quotes regarding the website's material that article is in fact referring to. The website that the article, "Anonymous Gossip Sites" is referring to is www.collegeacb.com. Again, I would not encourage you to go to this website. However, I found it appropiate to mention this site's presence and ask about it's content and if it was in the realm of free speech. As far as the people that are actually on this site posting, their names and personal information is not available making the posts anonymous.

Peter Frank is a sophmore at Wesleyan University where he is the actual creator of this website. He is a 19 year old running this website out of his dorm room. He has in fact gotten numerous emails from hundreds of students and multiple administrations from different universities about the taking down of certain posts and ultimately the deleting of an entire school's category. He refuses to do so stating that he is looking out for the best interests of college students, and not of universities.

I found that this website's material revolved around racism and sexism and was very offensive.

As for now, Peter is not obligated to take the website down and is "untouchable," as he says. The article claims that Universities are fighting this website's content. Students at North Carolina Central University are protesting by boycotting all of the similar webisites. Colleges are creating workshops to encourage students to stray away from this situation. Millsaps College has gone so far as blocking these websites from their school's computers. So as far as I can tell, the websites are still going with little signs of shutting down. My argument would be that there is a limit to free speech and the right to harm other individuals vocally.