JuicyCampus.com has taken campus gossip to a new level.

The Web site allows students from about 500 college campuses to post comments with complete anonymity, and has sparked controversy because the comments are often demeaning and hurtful to specific people.

Tennessee State University (TSU) in Nashville banned Juicy Campus from being accessed on university networks in November, being the first university to do so.

Although this raises questions about whether the ban is a violation against the First Amendment and freedom of speech, several DU students believe actions should be taken to regulate what can be said on the Web site.

“The site has morphed into something sadistic,” senior communications management major Paul Schutz said,

“However, fiction or nonfiction, legal or illegal, it is plain for anyone to see, in the countless number of malicious posts, that Juicy Campus is causing real harm to real people.”

Some recent comments on the Juicy Campus page for DU discuss who has the worst drug habits, what the “sexiest” fraternity is and what the stereotypes are for each sorority.

Some posts merely state a person’s first and last name and ask people to comment about him or her.

“I hope that DU students set an example by having the maturity and intellect to raise the standard of what’s considered entertaining or funny,” Schutz said.

“We are lucky to have the First Amendment, which gives us the power to speak our minds. It will always be easy to exploit such a law, but difficult to be responsible guardians of it,” he said.

Elizabeth Tannura, senior journalism major, thinks it is a violation of the First Amendment to ban the site, but that sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits.

“This Web site causes more problems than the fun people may have with it,” Tannura said.

“There should definitely have to be more regulation of what people say [on the site]. If someone is going to put information up about someone else they should at the least have to put their name next to it.”

Matt Ivester, founder of Juicy Campus, said it was a “complete shock” to him when he found out that TSU banned his Web site from its network.

“I think it’s so incredibly inappropriate for a government institution to censor their Internet. They don’t block out any other Web sites; you can go to the sickest porn sites, the most hateful hate sites but not Juicy Campus,” Ivester said.

“It’s just a message board place where students have the opportunity to discuss topics and I think to deny students that right is completely inappropriate and a tremendous violation of First Amendment,” he said.

He plans to take legal action against TSU in the near future.

“This may be a very real legal battle, and a landmark case. Our hope is to establish a precedent that public universities cannot arbitrarily decide what students do and do not have access to online,” Ivester said.

Ivester, who graduated from Duke University in 2005, launched Juicy Campus in October 2007. He said he plans on expanding the site to 2,400 four-year institutions across the nation.

As for the controversial comments that target specific people, Ivester said they are “unsubstantiated, anonymous gossip.”

“I don’t think a reasonable person believes what is on a site like ours. If you see something you disagree with, [the] answer is not censorship; we would encourage you to go on the site and post additional information or a differing opinion and encourage your friends to do the same,” Ivester said.

With the advent of cyber-bullying and debates about the freedom of speech in cyberspace, Mass Communications professor Lynn Schofield-Clark said, “It’s important for universities to be aware of these things and speak out about possible negative repercussions.”

She said that although students can post malicious comments about others anonymously, chances are someone will find his or her actions “to be reprehensible in the real world and may find out who you are.”

“I don’t know that we can prevent it. People can participate in whatever self-destructive and negative behaviors they want to.

“Anybody who decides to put something on Juicy Campus could be putting themselves at risk for something that we don’t even have laws on yet but we might in the future,” she said.