Mar 5, 2005

The Filtered Professor

by Cliopatria

Yesterday's Pasadena City College Courier reports on the new Internet filters that have been installed on our faculty computers. Amusingly enough, the student computers in the library and other computing labs have unfiltered access to the Internet.

In an attempt to curb recreational use of the Internet, a filtering system has been installed on staff and faculty computers to eliminate visits to pornographic, adult gaming and adult gambling sites.

Computers used by students and computers in the library are not affected by the filter.

Okay, I give. What's the difference between adult gaming and adult gambling? I thought "gaming" was just a euphemism for gambling. Did the reporter make an error, or are they really two entirely different things?

"We're trying to define to what extent Internet use is permissible," Hardash said. "We do not wish to block their ability to do their job."

In September, the college began monitoring staff and faculty activity online to determine the amount of time spent visiting websites not used for institutional or administrative purposes. Filtering was turned on in November to block a narrow portion of websites, said Dale Pittman, director of management information services.

Teachers who wish to gain access to a blocked site for educational purposes will be able to talk to a division dean, Hardash said.

Although an acceptable use policy regarding the Internet is in place for faculty and staff, the college wanted to do everything it could to avoid inappropriate use of publicly funded computers, according to Dr. James Kossler, college president.

Once the software was installed, "we saw there were abuses," said Kossler.

Note: we were never told that our Internet use was being monitored, though I just assumed it was. One of the reasons why I tell my students to contact me via Hotmail and not via the campus e-mail is I don't want an administrator snooping about.

However, faculty members are concerned about restricting certain websites, said Kay Dabelow, president of the Academic Senate. (And the senior historian at PCC and a good friend).

"The faculty technology committee felt that a blocking of Internet sites on faculty computers represented a violation of academic freedom and recommended to the senate board that the board take a position opposing such blockage," Dabelow said. "The matter has also been referred to the senate academic freedom and professional ethics committee, which will also make its recommendation to the senate board."

Honestly, I'm of two minds about this. If I put on my "civil libertarian union member" hat, I'm with Dabelow. Though I understand the desire to want to block porn and gambling sites, part of me resents the notion that the college doesn't consider its own faculty capable of exercising discretion when using campus computers. I'm especially troubled by the fact that non-teachers (those who design these filters) have decided for themselves what does and does not have an academic purpose.

But frankly, as much as I hate to admit it, I'm leaning towards siding with the administration on this one. It is conceivable that porn and gaming sites might have a proper academic use, particularly for someone (like myself) who teaches courses on gender and sexuality. But the filter we have is very good about distinguishing real porn from sites that deal with sexuality from a more humane, non-commercial perspective. (For example, two feminist publications I often read, Bitch and Bust, aren't blocked -- something I was pleased to discover. Playboy, on the other hand, is. Smart filter.) I'm also happy that we are able to access blocked sites by making direct requests to the administration. I've done so for one site, and within 48 hours received access to it. I did not have to explain my rationale, beyond saying it was needed for my work.

As much as I celebrate the freedom of tenure (and when I teach courses like Lesbian and Gay history, which I will in the fall, I use that freedom for all its worth), I recognize that even tenured faculty live in communities. We aren't utterly autonomous -- what we do in our campus offices on campus machines is not merely our own private business. Porn and gambling sites have, in most cases, little connection to what we do as professors. For those in our community who struggle with porn or gambling addiction, the fact that access is now blocked may well be a relief. In some sense, the work computer becomes a safer place. The chance of inadvertent embarrassment or even a sexual harassment problem is also minimized.

When I first joined the PCC faculty in 1994, there wasn't much on the Internet that was of use to most folks. My first couple of years, I logged on for e-mail and nothing else. It was only about 1997 that I began to explore the wide range of possibilities on-line, and found that the web was a terrific resource (and a great way to spend idle time.) But I am aware that the Internet has its darker side as well, and I suspect that for some, that darker side can be immensely seductive.

Heck, I welcome the administration -- or anyone else -- to monitor my on-campus Internet use. You'll find out I read a couple of dozen blogs a day, return an extraordinary number of student e-mails, and am obsessed with chinchillas. You'll also find that I'm interested in issues of evangelical faith and human sexuality, and I haven't the slightest embarrassment about the sites I visit in pursuit of that latter interest.

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More Comments:

Greg James Robinson - 3/9/2005

I do not intend to get sucked into a debate (pun intended) on whether academic interests can be separated from sexual ones, or on whether professors should be barred from using work terminals for (some but not other) recreational purposes. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that the answer is yes to both points, there remains the point that I have already made, namely that there are professional uses for porn sites and that it infringes upon academic freedom to limit access. To give you an example, I read PLAYBOY (only in the barber's chair--honest!), and get a lot out of its articles. I have occasionally used such material for professional purposes. It would be an intolerable humiliation for the average person to have to go to a stranger and request permission to access PLAYBOY, and be thought a pervert, a pornographer, a heterosexual, etc. It would be even more chilling to have to ask for access to Gay sites, and be thought Gay. Such a thing, under "don't ask, don't tell" could even constitute an admission of sexual orientation that could get the requestor removed from the service.

Hugo Schwyzer - 3/8/2005

Greg, one of your sentences contains the problem for me:

"Do I really think that it is so simple to ask people to advertise their sexual interests to middle-aged bureaucrats in order to do their work?"

Well, we shouldn't be using the work computers for our sexual interests -- our academic ones, yes. I am assuming that even for those of us who work in gender studies, that which arouses us can be distinguished from that which interests us professionally. (If we can't agree that that is an important distinction, then we do have trouble on our hands.) Defending the latter is a good deal easier. Even porn may be worthy of academic study, in which case it ought to be available. But I don't see why the administration should be required to let us use campus facilities for our own gratification.

Greg James Robinson - 3/8/2005

Hello? Are you not getting it? Forget the slippery slope--we are already at the bottom. We are talking about the administration unilaterally deciding what internet sites are acceptable (or professionally relevent) sources of knowledge and which are not. Can you imagine how freezing this is to freedom of speech and free inquiry? There is not even, as with hate speech, a countervailing interest of importance.

Also, I should have to ask speacial permission every time I want to log on to a site because it has erotic content? Do I really think that it is so simple to ask people to advertise their sexual interests to middle-aged bureaucrats in order to do their work? Why don't we just do what so many libraries still do, and put gay-themed material under lock and key, to be given only to those who are granted permission to see it--or may be we should resume the practice of putting dirty bits in Latin so that only the erudite can determine what it is all about?

Hugo Schwyzer - 3/6/2005

If there were no provision for accesssing those sites, I might agree. I note that all of the important gay and lesbian non-porn resources are available. I can read the Advocate, I can visit the Human Rights Campaign, and so forth. On one occasion, I did need access to a certain blocked site that was a mix of erotica and "hard" news (pun intended) -- no questions asked, I got access.

I've never been one to buy into "slippery slope" arguments, especially around porn. Civil libertarians are fond of saying "Let 'em censor Hustler today,and tomorrow they'll be after the New York Times" -- but I find that kind of chicken-little argument to be more than a little insulting, both to my intelligence and that of the administration.

Timothy James Burke - 3/5/2005

I think it's very bad that this was done unannounced, for starters. But also, my god, the slippery slope here is hardly speculative. Let's stipulate for the moment that faculty ought not to look at gambling or porn sites while at work, something that I don't agree with. Given that the justification here is, "Don't look at anything which doesn't connect with your professional duties while in your office", how long indeed before your chinchilla fetish becomes an issue? The thing that makes academic training so great and yet so wearying at times is that it tends to invade all aspects of your life, you tend to see everything through scholarly lenses. I do not want anyone, particularly administrators, trying to second-guess what is or is not an appropriately professional interest for me. In an average day, I might look at a number of blogs; I check up on some massively-multiplayer computer game news-sites and forums; I look around Amazon to see what's new and interesting both in my own particular fields and in general; I click-through to some of the things that BoingBoing and Slashdot have covered that day. A narrow-minded administrator could potentially second-guess any or all of that activity. The only thing different about this technology, in fact, is that it *permits* that kind of snooping oversight: nobody can remotely monitor what I might read in books, magazines and journals, which might be equally open to second-guessing.

Greg James Robinson - 3/5/2005

I do not know which is more apalling, that the PCC administration is checking up on people's internet use or that it has installed automatic censorship devices. Didn't the U.S. Supreme Court rule that such censorship was unconstitutional?
I am also greatly irked by my colleague's comment that porn sites have little to do with what we do as professors, particularly in teaching Lesbian and Gay studies. This betrays a shocking lack of imagination (no sniggering, everybody). Porn offers a rare and powerful window for interpreting sexuality, social relations, etc. I attended a wonderful panel at the American Studies Association some years ago at which John Howard spoke about the transmission of priceless information about Gay men's lives (especially rural and Southern) through the medium of internet chat rooms, which provided the anonymity and friednly atmosphere for honest discussion. I owe my mastery of French language (and especially slang and the real workings of common speech) to reading French porn magazines in my youth. The idea that PLAYBOY, which has shaped American culture and intellectual life for half a century, can be zapped at the whom of an administrator seems to me an extremely dangerous trend.