Officials at Kent State University have backed off on a plan to ban student athletes from creating profiles on Facebook, reports The Columbus Dispatch. But the university will still place some tight restrictions on how its athletes can use the popular social-networking site.
The institution’s athletics director, Laing Kennedy, had recently told athletes that they had until the beginning of August to shut down their Facebook profiles (The Chronicle, June 23). But he relented, apparently, after discovering that Facebook’s privacy settings allow users to restrict their profiles to people they identify as their friends.
In an e-mail message to Kent State students, Mr. Kennedy hastened to add that athletes who choose to use Facebook will be required to let coaches and academic advisers monitor their profiles for content—a provision that may cause some of the affected students to avoid the site altogether. —Brock Read
