The expansion of the Internet and its accessibility may account for the fact that more children are accessing it and viewing inappropriate materials. While grammar schools feel that its necessary to censor explicit sites from children, Internet censorship on college campuses is receiving mixed reviews. Part of the reason that censorship is becoming a major issue in schools because students are often assigned by their teachers to go onto the Internet and find information.

Professor Rebecca Thomas, an information technology professor at Marist College, said that institutions are grappling with some difficult issues such as protecting children from unsuitable information and allowing access to the Internet in student labs.

" I know of cases where women graduate students had to use a particular public lab for their work, and some of the other students who shared the lab would put obscene pictures up on their terminals," she said.

Thomas said that the feeling of the women was that they would not put up with obscene pictures on the wall, so why would they put up with them on the computer terminals?

She also said that Internet censorship is an issue dealing with the delicate balancing of individual rights.

" I think that people ought to be able to access pornography if they want to, but I don’t think that they ought to be able to use for example, Marist’s resources to do that," she said.

She said that students are nearly adults and just starting to make judgements for themselves about what they want to view. However, colleges act as substitute parents and have to be somewhat protective. There are also issues of rights of other students and limited resources.

" Students accessing inappropriate materials may consume too much band width from the Internet and prevent other students from doing their legitimate work," Thomas said. " Robbing students of their right to use the facilities appropriately is wrong."

Thomas said that she doesn’t believe that school Internet censorship infringes upon students’ rights.

" Students do pay money and they have the right to use the school’s facilities, but the school has the right to say how the facilities are going to be used," she said. "Students have the right to get a separate, off campus account, such as America Online, and do whatever they would like with it."

The issue of student censorship on campuses has evolved into a bigger dilemma than just indecent pictures. Since December, Villanova University has been concerned about the amount of data that is transferred over their network, so they began to monitor it without notifying students. After reviewing the materials, the school found that the majority of the data being transferred was pirated material and pornographic. The school continues to receive copies of everything that students download and calls students to ask about why they were downloading certain materials.

The students at Villanova and across the country say that this is an invasion of their privacy. The college claims that since it is their network, they can do anything that they would like.

Kevin Graff, a sophomore information technology major at Marist College and a good friend of a Villanova student, said that he believes that censorship of this nature is unfair because the school is violating the freedom of speech.

" Throughout the years, people have been fighting to prove to people that computers are good and that it is the one place where we can express ourselves on a global scale," he said. " That is the beauty of the Internet and that is why it became so popular so fast."

Graff said that he doesn’t want people to control what is on his web page or what he writes in e-mail letters. He also said that anything less than freedom of speech is unconstitutional and that people will find ways to get around censorship. They will find a way to go about their business as they always have.

Thomas said that censorship will be with us for a long time.