]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]     Network Humor Nixed      [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
                                                       (3/9/1989)
  From Campus Report (Washington, D.C.), February 1989, p. 2:2

          [Kindly uploaded by Freeman 10602PANC]
 
   Network Humor  Nixed: Stanford  has yet  another headache, and
this one's  no joke.  It  erupted when  some ivory-towered purist
spied  some  bawdy  prose  popping  upon  the  school's  computer
bulletin board that circulates to campuses all over the country.
Ralph Gorin, director of  Academic Information Resources, sniffed
that  the board  contained  ``material based  on  racial, ethnic,
sexual, religious and other  stereotypes.''  After hunkering down
with campus legalistes to  hammer out free speech considerations,
the joke file was pulled.
   Now, when off-color  joke-seekers dip into  the file, they are
greeted  with  the  following  message:  ``Jokes  based  on  such
stereotypes  perpetuate  racism,  sexism  and  intolerance;  they
undermine an important university  purpose: our collective search
for  a better  way, for  a truly  pluralistic community  in which
every person is acknowledged an individual, not a caricature.''
   Prof. John McCarthy, who teaches computer science at Stanford,
is among  some 40  faculty and  student joke-file  users who have
protested  the  joke ban  as  censorship.  ``I  think  history is
repeating itself,''  said Mr. McCarthy,  who likened prohibitions
on computer info to banning books.
   Stanford prez Donald Kennedy  disagreed, saying that since the
joke  file issue  involved freedom  of  expression, it  should be
decided  by the  faculty.   He noted  that  the file  ``will stay
removed until the faculty considers whether to replace it.''

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