Message received

E-mail harassment sets a bad example for the University

As we enter the age of technology, E-mail is being used by more and more people as a means of communication.

The University community is no different; still, the E-mail accounts provided Penn State students and employees are privileges, not rights.

When someone uses that source of communication to harass or impose their views on someone else, problems arise.

Last month, a University research assistant became one of ten people at the University to ever have their E-mail account revoked.

This staff member wrote to some individuals who requested that he stop. When the unwelcome E-mail messages continued, the Center for Academic Computing was contacted and the sender's account was suspended.

Under part of University Policy, by repeatedly sending unwanted E-mail, the sender is harassing the recipient. This is unacceptable.

Those who revoked the staff member's E-mail account should be commended.

A warning to stop violating policy always occurs before an account is revoked, giving an E-mail sender enough of a chance to review University policy and to stop harassing someone else through E-mail.

Although everyone has the right to free speech -- to express thoughts, feelings or ideas --when free speech becomes hate speech, it becomes a problem.

The staff member who had his E-mail account suspended should stop and think seriously about what he did.

As a University employee, he should set an example for the students at the University. Is this what everyone should be doing? Sending harassing E-mail messages over and over to an individual with whom we disagree?

The E-mail recipients requested that the unwanted messages stop. That request should have been honored by the sender of the E-mail.

And because he chose to continue, officials were justified in suspending the E-mail account he used -- the one issued to him by the University.