Fight looms over proposed policy on college computers

Monday, May 18, 1998 | 9:52 a.m.

A fight to protect freedoms that many educators say are basic to higher education is poised to move statewide.

Nevada's American Civil Liberties Union executive director, Gary Peck, is arranging to attend meetings on college campuses across the state to speak out against a proposed computer use policy that appears to give administrators the right to examine the contents of school-owned computers at will and to pass judgment on whether those contents are "suitable."

Peck, who already has spoken to the UNLV Faculty Senate, recently spoke to members of the Community College of Southern Nevada Faculty Senate and Nevada Faculty Alliance last.

Earlier he failed to gain a speaking spot at a meeting of the full CCSN Faculty Senate because of time constraints and was invited to a special joint meeting of the two groups instead.

The Alliance is the faculty's union, a statewide organization.

Alan Balboni, CCSN professor of political science and history, suggested Peck speak to officials of the Nevada Faculty Alliance at the state level and to encourage them to issue a warning that it would not accept a computer use policy, or a corresponding software policy also under consideration, until the issue has been fully discussed by everyone who will be affected by the proposed policy.

Balboni is the incoming president of the CCSN Faculty Senate.

Peck is outraged by the proposed policy and vowed to make the fight against it a loud and public one.

"I care very deeply about the core values of the university," Peck said.

Among those values are academic freedom, freedom of speech and the right to privacy, all of which he says are attacked by the policy.

"The policy that is on the board is a disaster," said Peck, noting that many issues it raises have already been litigated by the ACLU in other states and the ACLU has won.

The proposed policy was authored by Carl Armstrong, counsel for the University and Community College System of Nevada.

Armstrong has said the policy is being circulated for feedback and is not in its final form.

He said a policy is needed because computer technology has expanded so rapidly regulations have not been able to keep pace with usage. That usage sometimes touches upon a variety of issues such as copyright infringement, pornography, software piracy, perpetuation of pyramid schemes and others.

The policy outlines the do's and don'ts pertaining to the use of university computers.

CCSN President Richard Moore said recently that the administration has no plan or desire to monitor the content of computers, only to monitor software to regulate the use of unlicensed software that could cause lawsuits.