The following is copyright The New York Times. Do not forward or redistribute this information. type: NYT (Copyright 1994 The New York Times) priority: Urgent date: 09-21-94 2057EDT category: Domestic subject: BC COMPUTER HARASS (2TAKES) title: COLLEGE SETTLES HARASSMENT CHARGES STEMMING FROM COMPUTER CONFERENCES author: TAMAR LEWIN text: In a case that highlights the tension between protected free speech and illegal sexual harassment -- and raises new questions about what legal protections apply to computer messages -- a junior college in California has agreed to pay three students $15,000 each to settle charges stemming from its men-only and women-only computer conferences. The school, Santa Rosa Junior College, reached the settlement after the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, with whom the claim was filed, told the college in a letter last June that it had found a probable violation of the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools. Two plaintiffs in the case were women who had been the subject of anatomically explicit and derogatory remarks posted on the men-only computer conference. One of the woman, Jennifer Branham, had dated a man who posted some of the messages. The other, Lois Arata, was singled out because of her protests against an advertisement in the campus newspaper that showed the buttocks of a bikini-clad woman. The third plaintiff, Dylan Humphrey, saw the computer messages and broke the system's confidentiality rule to tell the women about them and said he suffered retaliation by the school for his actions. Legally, the case presents several firsts. The Office for Civil Rights says there have been no prior legal rulings on how much First Amendment protection should be accorded to messages on college computer bulletin boards. And computer law experts say that they know of no previous charges of sexual discrimination arising out of single-sex computer services. ``There are many commercial and noncommercial single-sex bulletin boards, most of them for women only,'' said Michael Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Washington public-interest law group. ``It's a very sad decision to say that you can't have such things, because the people who will be hurt most are the women who want them.'' Furthermore, Godwin and others said, the Santa Rosa case has troubling First Amendment implications. ``If freedom of speech means anything, it means the ability to express your anger or frustration with another person,'' Godwin said. ``And freedom of association means you get to choose who you talk to. Here we have a case where guys are talking to each other, saying some obnoxious and hateful things, but deliberately avoiding saying them to the women. What should have happened is that people who objected to the content should have called the guy who posted the message a jerk.'' The professor who organized the system closed the men-only and women-only conferences when the women complained about the messages. The three Santa Rosa students brought their charges under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds. The Office for Civil Rights, which enforces Title IX, can cut off federal funds to schools that violate the law. Although the law includes a few specific exemptions -- for example, allowing sex-segregated sports teams and restrooms -- there is still considerable legal confusion about how much leeway it allows for women's centers, date-rape counseling groups or other school programs that are segregated by sex. ``There are still a lot of questions about how far Title IX reaches,'' said Bob Henry, the lawyer for Santa Rosa Junior College. ``Generally, if it's a private activity of the students, Title IX can't touch it, any more than they can regulate what students say as they're walking across campus. But if it's an educational activity, then Title IX says it can't be segregated by sex.'' In its June letter, the Office for Civil Rights ruled that Santa Rosa's computer bulletin board was an educational activity covered by Title IX. The overall computer bulletin board system was started in 1992 by a journalism professor, Roger Karraker, who set up more than 100 conferences, or discussion groups, on the system -- each open to men and women alike, and each addressing a separate topic like travel, geography or current events. In 1993, in response to requests from students, Karraker said, he set up the women-only and men-only conferences. ``I must have had some glimmer that there could be a legal problem, because I set them up only after confirming with the counseling office that the college offered men-only and women-only counseling sessions,'' Karraker said. ``But I didn't see how it would be any different legally if it was on a computer.'' Participation in the men-only and women-only conferences was purely voluntary. About 10 men and 17 women signed up for the sex-segregated conferences, receiving special passwords and agreeing to keep all postings confidential. In addition to ruling that the creation of segregated conferences was discriminatory in itself, the Office for Civil Rights said in its letter that the remarks on the bulletin board were a form of sexual harassment that had created a hostile educational environment for Ms. Branham, a journalism major who worked on the campus newspaper with the three men who had posted the messages. The office said the remarks about Ms. Arata did not create a hostile environment, since she did not know the men who posted them and could continue her course work without any contact with them. Although the college settled with the three plaintiffs last week, it has yet to settle with the Office for Civil Rights. Henry, the college's lawyer, said Santa Rosa might still go to court to resolve what it sees as a basic conflict with students' First Amendment rights. The Office for Civil Rights has proposed a ban on computer bulletin board comments that harass, denigrate or show hostility toward a person or group based on sex, race or color, including slurs, negative stereotypes, jokes or pranks. ``I'm concerned that with these findings the Office for Civil Rights is extending Title IX further than it was meant to go and interfering with the First Amendment,'' Henry said. ``The college's view is that private conversations, no matter how outrageous, have no limits and should not be content-controlled. And if this bulletin board is illegal, does that mean we can't have a women's group to discuss date rape? There are profound questions about Title IX that need to be settled.'' Henry added: ``We have a podium out under an oak tree on campus, known as Hyde Park, where students can go harangue about anything. We don't limit what they can say there. That's the way they did things in the 1800s, but in the next century it's going to be computers.'' He said the separate bulletin boards had been established at the request of several female students. There were months of discussion over whether such a forum was needed, he said, and the men-only conference was set up specifically in reaction to the women's network. ``There were some men and some women who opposed the idea and some of each who favored the idea, but for different reasons,'' Henry continued. ``The women wanted it to speak about sexuality, medical and reproductive issues that they would rather keep private. The males said they wanted a forum to discuss how to cope with male-bashing and the pressures of political correctness on campus. It was almost a snapshot of college life these days.'' Recognizing that the sex-segregated conferences could create a problem, Karraker appointed a moderator for each one. When Ms. Branham complained to Karraker about the messages, he closed the men-only conference and removed the moderator from the computer network because he felt that, in leaving the messages on the board, the moderator had failed to perform his duties. Karraker did not allow Ms. Branham to view the messages, but she was able to obtain a copy of them from Karraker's son, who used his father's password to gain access to the system. The letter from the Office for Civil Rights acknowledged the students' free-speech interest, but said the bulletin board was not entitled to the same degree of protection as a campus newspaper or locker-room conversation precisely because only one sex was allowed to take part and there was a moderator who could delete inappropriate messages. The First Amendment protection was limited, the letter said, because the single-sex computer conference was different from ``a traditional bulletin board or a conversation in a locker room that any student could use to add their expression to the marketplace of ideas.'' ``We were extremely conscious of free speech rights,'' John E. Palomino, the office's regional director, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. ``But they are not absolute.''