Even though some Student Government Association representatives have strong feelings about the gossip website CollegeACB.com, the group acted with commendable restraint in its discussion and decisions regarding what to do about the website.

For those unfamiliar with the website, CollegeACB.com – a JuicyCampus.com replacement – lets users post anonymously about other people in message boards specific to their university. TCU is one of the schools featured on the website. The conversations are hardly intellectually stimulating. They range from “biggest man whores” to “who’s doing the most coke.”

Although it would be tempting to encourage the university to ban the website from the university’s network, SGA chose wisely in declining to go down that route. Representatives cited freedom of speech concerns as a deterrent. While it is difficult to see what value, if any, a gossip website offers to a university campus, opening the door for censorship is a slippery slope that the university must avoid. Student representatives clearly realized that when they voted against the proposal 36 to 31.

Further, banning the website from campus would not stop students from commenting on it through other networks. On the other hand, asking the university to seek legal grounds for the removal of TCU from the college list in the website is a much more reasonable way to deal with the issue. Whether that is feasible remains to be seen, but regardless of the success of this proposal, SGA should be praised for its representatives’ good judgment.

Editor-in-chief Julieta Chiquillo for the editorial board.