Daily Staff Reporter

After weeks of review, a judiciary body at Cornell University is expected to hand down its decision today on whether to punish four first-year students for writing and then distributing a derogatory e-mail message.

The students originally sent the message, titled "75 reasons why women (bitches) should not have freedom of speech," to 20 of their friends in October. The students said they meant it as a joke, and did not think the message would be forwarded. The message was, however, sent to students across the country and has created a national outrage.

Andrew Morse, editor in chief of The Cornell Daily Sun, said yesterday that campus reaction to the incident has been "mixed." He said some students were outraged at the content of the message, while others did not consider it a problem.

Morse said the Daily Sun's editorial page supported free speech, although it expressed its outrage against the contents of the message. "(The Daily Sun) supported students' right to freely express themselves but we were appalled by the nature of the message," he said.

The incident reminded many observers of last spring's Jake Baker case at the University. Baker was suspended in February after he posted sexual fantasies on the Internet, one of which specifically mentioned the assault of a female University student.

University spokeswoman Julie Peterson would not comment on what the University would have done if four of its students had written a message similar to the one at Cornell.

"In general, the University has a policy of interpreting freedom of speech as broadly as possible," she said. "We do not step in as the role of censor in regard to the kind of communications people send out through the computer."

The Baker case, Peterson said, was different because the University perceived Baker's e-mail message as directly threatening to a student. "In that particular instance, we did not view it as an instance of freedom of speech," she said. "A specific student had been threatened and had reason to believe she was endangered."

Instead of suspending students who write offensive e-mail messages which generally are interpreted as free speech, Peterson said the University offers a variety of educational programs to combat these things.

For example, Peterson said the Information Technology Division runs a program called "Think About It," which consists of printed materials and live forums to consider issues of sensitivity on the Internet.