Censorship

Posted on April 16, 2004 by woit

It seems that the second most important web-site in the particle theory community (the first is obviously the arXiv ) has been shut down by the University of Washington. The Theoretical Particle Physics Jobs Rumor Mill has for years been a comprehensive source of information about who’s hot, who’s not, the hiring plans of all the theoretical particle physics groups in the United States and Canada, and the career moves of more established theorists. I hope a new home for the site can be found at a less fearful institution. I’d consider putting it up here, but I’ve got enough particle theorists annoyed at me already…

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2 Responses to Censorship

  1. Peter says:
    April 19, 2004 at 11:16 am

    At least in the US, academic freedom traditionally does mean that academic staff have the freedom to use the university resources normally made available to them to disseminate information they choose about their scholarly field.

    That said, I suppose one could argue that the sort of information being disseminated there was not the sort that traditionally is protected by guarantees of academic freedom. I have no idea who at UW was running this web-site or why the department there insisted that it be closed down.

  2. Thomas Dent says:
    April 19, 2004 at 10:31 am

    Actually, the person responsible for the Rumor Mill page is perfectly free to pay for his own private website hosting and display the exact same information in his free time.

    I don’t know exactly why U-W physics no longer wanted that webpage to be hosted on its server, but it might have something to do with a contract between the faculty member and the university concerning proper use of the physics department webspace.

    Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to put your speech on a website paid for by another person or institution.

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