🚀 go-pugleaf

> |(You can post a reply to the net, quoting this note if you wish.)  It
> |seems that the harassment rule might prohibit public display, but
> |would not require restrictive file permissions.
> 
> I agree that "public access" to the files does not itself seem like it
> constitutes sexual harrassment, but I do not have the university rules
> to quote from.  Hell, there's always the chance that my explanation of
> the reasons behind this is dead wrong.  I don't *make* policy.  I've
> been known to suggest it, and I'm occasionally forced to improvise,
> but I'm not on the computer committee.

I don't know anything in particular about OSU's reasoning either.

But I was once told by a lawyer (in reference to a harrassment case at
a former place of employment) that an organization can be held to be
guilty of sexual harrassment if it creates an environment in which
sexual harrassment of an employee is likely.  

The case sited as an example (I understood it to be a true case though
I didn't bother to get any specific references):

A Doctor made issues of Playboy and Penthouse available to adult
patients in his waiting room (with precautions to prevent minors from
seeing them).  A nurse in his employ noticed an upswing in the number
of offensive comments and the like from patients.  When the doctor
refused to stop making the magazines available she filed suit claiming
that the distribution of the magazines in the office created an
environment in which she was much more likely to be sexually harrassed
even though the doctor did not in any way harrass her.  She won the
suit and the doctor was forced to stop making them available.

I gathered that there have been other suits of a similar nature tried.

I don't know whether the laws applied were restricted to a specific
state or not.

But, being aware of this case I might give extra consideration to how
I allow sexually explicit images to be made available on a machine
that I run.  

Fwp
--
Frank Peters   Internet:  fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu         Bitnet:  FWP1@MsState
               Phone:     (601)325-2942               FAX:     (601)325-8921