University of California Dropping Objection to “The Dark Side of UCSB” Web Site

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. . . .