April 28, 2006
Too Much Skin
McGill University has shut down the Web site of a professor who posted pictures of McGill students culled from Playboy's current "Girls of the Top Ten Party Schools" issue.
The professor, Luc Devroye, posted the racy photos alongside a story noting that McGill had made Playboy's list of North America's most bacchanalian places to get a baccalaureate. (Evidently McGill's ratio of women to men -- and the prevalence of French-Canadians, whom the magazine describes as "famously open about sex" -- pushed the university into the top ten.)
But campus officials didn't think the images were appropriate for a Web site hosted by the university. Now Mr. Devroye's site stores only a message expressing the professor's displeasure with McGill administrators:
Posted on Friday April 28, 2006 | Permalink |Luc Devroye's site is now closed. He is still alive and kicking, but on April 24, 2006, censorship and political correctness won against academic freedom. To the students who are counting on my course notes: sorry. To the researchers who are trying to download my work: sorry.... We may be up again one day after purgatory. (CTV)
Comments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: Mighty Mississippi Minds
Next: Facebook Turns to the (Corporate) World
Devroye is flat out wrong! An academic website which includes course notes and research is not an appropiate place for images from playboy.com. Devroye’s whining about ‘censorship and political correctness’ shows a lack of understanding of the difference between his public role as an educator and his private views – and given the increasing ‘pornification’ of public space, he would do well to reflect on his attitude. There is a difference between political correctness and respect, but the notice he has put on his site, if you have quoted it correctly, sounds like a childish tantrum to me.
— Mike Cosgrave Apr 29, 02:43 AM #
Besides being inappropriate & having nothing to do with freeedom of expression, what about copyright laws? If Playboy sues, the university could lose a fortune. It’s criminal. Not the best role model.
— Phyllis Kasper, Ph. D. Apr 30, 09:45 AM #
Phyllis: do you know how much copyrighted material is on McGill’s web pages? Most profs leave their published manuscripts on-line, after they have signed a copyright form transferring the rights to a journal.
Mike: Luc moved his personal stuff to his private page. I put a link to this private page and was told to remove it or be shut down. Which private pages can be linked to? What if I link to a page that links to a page… that links to a page that links to the pictures…...
How can I control what these intermediate pages link to?
— David Avis May 5, 07:51 PM #