Judge Backs Student on CSUN Web Dispute

A Los Angeles judge ruled Tuesday that Cal State Northridge officials cannot use a newly drafted computer policy to prohibit students from using the campus Internet computer server to express political views.

CSUN senior Christopher Landers, 32, is suing the university over the October blocking of his Internet site promoting the state Senate campaign of Democrat John Birke, who eventually lost to incumbent Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley). The site featured animation that transformed Wright’s face into a grinning skull to highlight what Landers called her ties to “the tobacco industry’s merchants of death.”

University officials contend a publicly funded institution cannot allow its equipment to be used for partisan politics.

Pending the outcome of the suit, which is due in court this summer, attorneys for Landers--including Birke himself--had asked Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne to prevent the university from enforcing a policy approved by the Faculty Senate in December. The new policy seeks to clarify that the university’s computers are to be used for academic and school business purposes only.

“This attempt by CSUN to characterize its restrictions against personal use as preserving the nature of the forum (i.e., for academic and university use) is suspect,” Wayne wrote in a seven-page ruling. “And, because the speech involved was ‘political’ expression it is offered protection.”

Michael Sohigian, a San Diego attorney joining Birke to represent Landers, said, “It was an easy case” for Wayne, arguing the university would be stifling constitutional rights by enforcing the new policy.

CSUN attorney Donna Ziegler said she was “shocked and surprised” by the decision, but added that the wording of the policy will not change.

Wayne “has not specifically invalidated the policy,” Ziegler said. “Even under the new policy, there’s nothing that says political speech is outright prohibited.” Such speech, she explained, would simply have to occur in the process of completing course work or university business.

Wayne denied a related request by Sohigian and Birke that would have prevented CSUN officials from harassing or intimidating Landers for expressing his political views on the Internet. She said the attorneys had failed to demonstrate any evidence of such actions.