Alas, in general the First Amendment guarantees everyone the right to employ communications for no better purpose than to distress and embarass the recipient. Presumably our ancestors had thicker skins than we do.
But if the person made actual and credible threats of harm, you have been assaulted. If the threats were serious, the local DA may prosecute under applicable Federal and state telecommunications law.
And more importantly, in your case the messages traveled over the network of your university. This is a private network, not a public forum, and the First Amendment does not apply (which typically distresses students). The university can impose whatever rules it wants on the users of its private network, and can terminate anyone’s access at will. Hence if you complain to the university, they might track down the sender, which is relatively easy if system administrators all along the route cooperate, and terminate his or her net access.
The same applies to Hotmail, but, on the other hand, they will probably be less likely to do so, as Hotmail lives in the real world
and not the delicate hothouse of the university, where people get into all kinds of tizzies over mere mean-spirited words.
The person mentioned above is probably Richard Machado, who was sentenced to a year in jail for making death threats to 59 people by campus e-mail.
Does it remain a private forum if the university has students who are recipients of any federally funded or administered financial assistance, or has professors or projects that are funded by a federal grant?
Why would a University (public or private) computer network user not be protected by the free speech amendment? At a college, a person can speak and his/her speech is protected by the amendment. The speaker is using the college grounds, and may even use an auditorium, class room, microphone, or other college property. Why would email not be given the same protection as speaking?
Geez, the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee your right to use a forum for which someone else paid. What kind of socialistic nonsense did you think Jefferson had in mind? The First Amendment merely prevents the government from prohibiting you by law from speechifying off your own pedestal, bought and paid for with your own money.
If you buy a press and print a newspaper, the government can’t say zip about what you print in it. But the “New York Times” is not obligated to print your letters to the editor. Catch the diff?
As to whether the government might blackmail a university with the threat of withholding federal funds into granting students certain privileges to use their private network, yeah, it could. But it doesn’t. Why should it? Why would the government give two hoots about student access to the Net?
Being at a public university merely means your education is subsidized by the taxpayers. It gives you no rights distinct from a private university student, unless of course your legislature has specifically authorized some. The taxpayers, through their representatives the Regents, may restrict student usage of their network as they please without falling afoul of the law.
Oops, forgot. George, if the university lets folks use their grounds to make controversial speeches, that’s their privilege and they probably do it with public relations and some high-minded principals in mind.
But they can bundle the speaker off their property anytime they want, for any reason or no reason at all. That’s the nature of property. Even to the extent the property is public – and I think public universities are owned by public corporations, not the State directly, the State has the right to enact time, place and manner restrictions on First Amendment rights.
Remember the 60s? Did you notice how the universities successfully appealed to the police to forceably remove people who were exercising First Amendment rights on their property?