Dean of Student Life Rick Sawyer urged students last Wednesday to speak out against the gossip Web site JuicyCampus.com in response to student requests for the administration to take action against the site and potentially ban it from campus computers.Posts related to Brandeis started appearing on the site in early and mid-October. Some of the most popular threads are "Campuswide Biggest Slut?" and "Ugliest Person Ever."

Over Thanksgiving break, Damien Lehfeldt '09 created a Facebook group called "Shut Down Juicy Campus at Brandeis," which by Dec. 6 had 402 members.

Lehfeldt said he started the initiative because he believed the Web site was threatening the Brandeis values of social justice and truth, and he was disturbed by insults written about his friends. "This is cowardice, and it is not protected by free speech," he said. He explained that since he began his campaign, negative posts have criticized his religion and have misrepresented his sexual orientation.

The administration was supportive in response to student concerns while carefully reviewing its options, Lehfeldt said. "I wish at this point the administration would put a ban on the Web site," which would convey that the University does not tolerate such behavior among the student body, he said. He also said that he believes there are a number of legal precedents that would justify removing the site for libel or defamatory speech.

"We're really empathetic; . I've had students sitting on my couch really upset and a little bit traumatized," Sawyer said, also noting many concerns expressed by friends and parents. "We're really disappointed . that I guess we do have some students on this campus who take advantage of the ability to be anonymous."

Sawyer stated the Department of Student Life believed it would be "more appropriate for students to be outraged" than for the administration to intervene. He said he encouraged the Student Union to work with Lehfeldt to establish a wider campus movement by this week and suggested conducting a student body survey. "I would hope that the students who have been to that site and posted bad things would be embarrassed about it, and I don't think they would be as embarrassed if I were to scold them," Sawyer said.

In an e-mail to the Justice, Union Director of Communications Jamie Ansorge '09 wrote that the Union Executive Board was unhappy about campus press coverage of JuicyCampus. "The Student Union does not believe that Juicy Campus should receive any additional press or attention. It should be spammed and ignored. That is what we are doing," he wrote. "That is what we have advised the administration and campus leaders to do."

Senator-at-Large Justin Sulsky '09 said that Senior Vice President for Communications Lorna Miles asked the opinion of students on the University Communications Advisory Committee of the Web site. After discussions with Union President Jason Gray '10 and other Union members, the committee came to a consensus to recommend that the site should not be shut down. "I think that instead, what needs to happen is a discussion about why people are saying such hurtful things on the [Brandeis JuicyCampus forum]," he said.

Last Tuesday, Lehfeldt organized an event to discuss the issue after he met with Sawyer and Chief Information Security Officer in Library and Technology Services Dennis Devlin.

At the meeting Erica Lubitz '12 said the site had affected her and many of her friends. "What bothered me the most was that my first and last name are on there, and I just didn't feel like I had enough privacy at that point," she said. She said that she hoped that students could use the site in a positive way to get advice about classes and professors, adding that she was against censorship.

Omefe Ogbeide '12 said she responded to criticism of Lubitz, her friend, on the site and encouraged the posters to express their comments face-to-face. She said she did not think students took the site very seriously and suggested that Dean Sawyer should send a letter to the community condemning it instead of censoring it.

"I kind of saw how it was becoming this stupid Mean Girls phenomenon, where people get off on making other people feel little," Ogbeide said.

Brendan Fradkin '12, who did not attend the meeting, said he posted on the site to make fun of both the insulting and critical comments. While he said he disapproved of the insults and called it an "awful Web site," he also does not believe in censorship. "If anything, I think it's better that people are aware of the gossip that's spreading about them so they can fight it better," he said. "I've been made fun of once or twice; . I don't take it seriously."

Five hundred schools have JuicyCampus profiles. JuicyCampus, which was created last year by a Duke University graduate, has faced criticism on many campuses. Tennessee State University was the first public university to ban the site when it blocked access on Nov. 12, and Hampton University in Virginia blocked the site last month.

"Blocking their access is on the table," Sawyer said, adding that blocking a site for the first time would open up complaints about sites considered objectionable by community members.

Sawyer said that seeing more comparable schools limiting access would influence Brandeis' decision. "The principled part of me would do it in a heartbeat; the pragmatic part of me . understands that it's a Pandora's box," he said, noting the large amount of distracting media attention Brandeis would receive nationally and on campus. "When you're a top 50 research university, you're not supposed to be weak-kneed in the face of confronting material," he said. He added that if a poster could be identified with some certainty, he or she could likely face Brandeis judicial action.

In an e-mail to the Justice, Devlin from LTS wrote that when visits to the site were surveyed by LTS one week in mid-November, the high point was under 200 visits per day, a number that has been declining over time. LTS currently blocks a few Web sites to protect against viruses, he stated.