By Zachary M. Raimi

Daily Staff Reporter

Cornell University decided late Thursday night not to punish four first-year students who wrote an offensive e-mail, saying the students did not violate Cornell's Code of Conduct.

The students did agree, however, to do community service, participate in a workshop and formally apologize to administrators.

In October, the students composed a list of "75 reasons why women (bitches) should not have freedom of speech" and distributed it to 20 friends via e-mail.

The students said the message was meant as a joke, and that they did not intend for it to be forwarded by the 20 recipients. However, the message was forwarded all over the campus and country.

A spokeswoman for Cornell said several members of the university community filed complaints under their Code of Conduct. The complaints were under two separate sections of the code: sexual harassment and misuse of the university's computer resources.

Cornell judicial administrator Barbara L. Krause, who made the ruling, said in a statement that the students did not violate either of these two parts of the code.

"Sexual harassment requires conduct that is directed at an individual or group, or conduct that creates a hostile environment. The authors of `75 Reasons,' however, did not direct the list at anyone with the purpose or effect of offending those recipients. ... Moreover, distributing the list to a handful of friends did not create a hostile environment," Krause said.

And in response to the charge that the students misused the university's computing system, she said that the university's policies "do not prohibit hate speech."

"To the contrary, they reaffirm the concept of free speech and recognize that certain offensive messages may have to be tolerated in a community which values the right of all to speak freely," she said.

Jacqui Powers, a spokeswoman for Cornell, said Friday that campus reaction to the ruling was mixed "because not everyone immediately understood the two aspects of the resolution."

Powers was referring to the three-part agreement between the administration and the four students. The students each will perform 50 hours of community service -- most likely at a local sexual assault clinic -- attend a workshop on sexual sensitivity and formally apologize to Cornell's senior administrators in person.

Administrators said the agreement was not a plea-bargain by the students, but a gesture of atonement.

"The students themselves recognize that they have caused great anger and hurt to many people," Krause said.

The e-mail's authors -- Rikus Linschoten, Brian Waldman, Evan Camps and Patrick Sicher -- published a letter of apology in Cornell's student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, earlier this month.

"We had no idea that we were really being taken seriously and seriously offending people until we received a letter from a young woman who had been sexually assaulted," the students wrote.