Northwestern University student webpage pulled

Prof. Velasquez' protest email:

This is Rosalinda Velasquez, a faculty member in Political Affairs. I am the faculty director of a research project undertaken by Eric Dahl, which involves the posting of a questionnaire on his commweb site.

According to the message from S. Jerrold, below, complaints were received about people getting excessive numbers of copies of a survey Eric emailed out.

First, it is unclear what this has to do with commweb.

Second, Eric emailed surveys to Usenet participants, using legitimate sampling methods, as part of a social scientific research study. No robot was used to select addresses, and any multiple deliveries were a simple an innocent mistake. No one is being spammed. Any complaints of this nature are the equivalent of Gallup or Roper or any research organization receiving complaints that unsolicited phone calls were made. There is no commercial interest here, however. One thousand email messages were sent out, with an expected response rate of 32%, according to tested procedures.

Third, this should be considered an issue of academic freedom on the part of my student and of mine.

If you remain uncomfortable about allowing the commweb site to contain this page, I will move it to my own PC. In this case please restore access to Eric's webpage, where we will post a note for redirection.

We are now receiving complaints from prospective respondents who would like to complete the questionnaire but cannot. We are losing subjects and the research is in jeopardy. I consider this an infringement of academic freedom and ask that you reverse the suspension immediately.

Rosalinda Velasquez

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