The Rocky Mountain Collegian

College should be a marketplace of ideas where the first amendment is highly revered. Pornography, as well as many other controversial issues, has its place on a college campus.

We attend a public university. We have a great library where anyone can go to research and explore. Recently, pornography popping up on library computers has some upset.

Pornography may be offensive to some people, but if we restrict access to it, where do we stop?

The people using library computers could be doing legitimate research. Even if they aren't, who is to say what they can and cannot look at?

Adults of legal age should be able to access any information they want, within legal bounds, even with public computers.

The problem arises when other people are unwillingly exposed to these images.

Public computer users should be aware of what they save to the network, as a measure of common courtesy.

At a university, the research required of students is far reaching. If any and all material deemed "offensive" or "inappropriate" was eliminated from campus, how could students learn about homosexuals, the Ku Klux Klan or abortion?

Someone may find Christian literature offensive, but the chances of that coming up in a censorship debate are slim.

Some artistic works depict nudity. Will they succumb to censorship as well?

The line is too fine. Starting to restrict any kind of information will push us down a slippery slope toward a totalitarian society where free access to information is impossible. And that is something we do not want to be.

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