ACLU to help Pitt student in Web
site dispute
Thursday, April 12, 2001
By Bill Schackner, Post-Gazette Staff
Writer
The American Civil Liberties Union says it
will represent
a white University of Pittsburgh student
ordered by the
school to halt research that includes a
Web site Pitt says is
racist against blacks.
A day after campus police hand-delivered a
cease-and-desist letter, Matt Schiros, 19,
continued to
operate his site yesterday in apparent
defiance of the order.
The freshman political science major from
Cleveland has
said he will not comply with Pitt
officials, who contend his
activities violate laws governing funded
research
involving human subjects.
"I don't intend on stopping," Schiros said
just after
receiving the order.
Schiros' Web site -- www.amiblackornot.com
-- invites
visitors to use racial slurs in casting
votes for "how black"
various people are. He said it is part of
a personal
research project concerning race relations
on college
campuses and how politically incorrect
views are
received.
The issue, as lawyers for the ACLU see it,
is less science
than it is the First Amendment. Witold
Walczak, director of
the Pittsburgh ACLU, said the university
has no right to
punish Schiros because it disagrees with
what he says.
"The answer for hateful speech is more
speech, not
censorship," Walczak said. "If you
disagree with what
Schiros says, don't shut him up. In fact,
the First
Amendment prohibits you from shutting him
up."
He said Pitt's actions will only give
Schiros a wider
forum.
Black student leaders have decried the
site as
reprehensible.
Late yesterday, university officials were
contemplating
their next move.
"The university has a responsibility to
make sure that its
policies, practices and procedures are
obeyed," said Pitt
spokesman Robert Hill. He said Schiros
must comply with
Tuesday's order or face possible
disciplinary proceedings.
Initially, Pitt said it was powerless to
act since the Web
site was not operated with university
resources. But the
school Tuesday said it reversed course
because Schiros
characterized his work as research that,
in Pitt's view, is
subject to campus approvals that Schiros
has not sought.
One of those rules requires that subjects
of the study give
informed consent to participating.
Schiros said his work is aimed at testing
a theory -- that
people "will do anything they can do to
shut down"
politically incorrect views, "especially
[at] institutions as
left-leaning as universities," he said.
http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010412pitt6.asp
