How would you feel if the next time you updated your Facebook profile, you received a notice from the University telling you that you could no longer utilize your Binghamton University Internet privileges? Sadly, the official correspondence would say that the University didn’t agree with your recent profile addition stating your love for Paris Hilton — apparently she has no place in our learning environment, and your Photoshopped picture of the celebutante wearing a BU sweatshirt violates the University’s trademark rights.

So now you can’t use University Internet resources, or access your BU Webmail and server space. All those labs you saved? Beyond your reach.

Seem a little harsh?

Well, dear reader, now you know the value of free speech and expression. OK, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement … the students at Tiananmen Square knew the value of free speech when the Communist party rolled in with tanks and violent intentions. But to a college student, there are few things worse for their academic career than losing access to the Internet.

One BU student responded to last semester’s controversial exhibit in the University Art Gallery — which displayed photos of African women, many nude — by posting her own parallel exhibit, featuring nude white women, on the Web. Hours later she received notification that she was suspended from her University Internet privileges and her “exhibit” was being censored (see Page 1).

Now before you all begin the indignant cries of “But they can’t do that!” that we know are just tumbling from your lips, we should tell you: Yes, they can do that. Technically, they have every right to.

The student’s censored site was hosted on the University server, and according to the Internet use policy every matriculating student agrees to, the University has the right to terminate Internet privileges for multiple offenses, including the misuse of the University network and misuse of University property (such as copyright infringement), which the student in question was charged with through the campus judicial system.

So yes, the University technically had the right to censor the student’s Web site … but that doesn’t mean that they were right to do it.

Academic institutions should be environments that foster open dialogues and open minds over controversial issues. They shouldn’t hide behind technicalities while suppressing the views of students in what we can only assume is an attempt to keep the p.r.-friendly happy face of BU intact.

Last semester the University stood behind the director of the University Art Gallery and trumpeted freedom of speech, a right they exercised in showing the controversial exhibit. Is it really asking so much for them to extend the same courtesy to their students?

If you’ve read Pipe Dream before (and let’s be honest, if you made it this far you’re probably a loyal reader), you already know our stance is that free speech should always prevail. We’ve been towing the free-speech line for as long as we can remember, and as long as the University continues to emulate Nazi Germany and pick and choose who can speak freely based on their own agenda, we’ll continue to write these editorials.

Anyone who supported the gallery’s right to show the controversial exhibit should support a student’s right to voice their opinion and speak out against the exhibit … and therefore anyone now supporting the jilted student’s right to post her views should also accept that the museum had the right to show the exhibit.

That’s the funny thing about free speech — if you want it yourself (and we all do; no one runs around yelling, “Censor me, please!”), you have to respect everyone else’s right to it, whether you agree with them or not.

So how about dropping a bit of that good ole ivory tower hypocrisy, BU, and instead allowing your students the same rights that you allow your faculty … and the same rights we’re sure you expect for yourselves?