When a Michigan State student fired off an email to nearly 400 faculty members protesting the school’s plans to shorten the 2009 fall semester, she probably didn’t expect to be labeled a spammer, but that’s exactly what happened. One of the people who got the email, a biology professor, promptly filed a complaint with the university’s administrators and now the student is facing a disciplinary hearing. None of the other faculty who got the email had a problem with it.

 

MSU’s bulk e-mail rules say that e-mailing more than a “small set of recipients”–with the maximum number set at 30 people–is verboten. In a statement on Friday, MSU said: “It is clear that this policy is content neutral and is a set of procedural requirements that apply to all bulk use of the e-mail system, as opposed to a policy that makes distinctions based on the content of particular e-mails. It is our belief that such a policy does not impose unlawful restrictions on free speech.” MSU declined to comment on specifics, citing privacy laws.

If MSU were a private school, such strict limits would be a matter of its contract with students and faculty: objectionable and inconsistent with academic freedom, perhaps, but not necessarily illegal. But because MSU is a public school, it is legally obligated to provide students with due process rights and it must protect their free speech rights.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is protesting the university’s actions and is considering filing a First Amendment lawsuit against it and the university president.