As universities come under increasing pressure to provide students the computer resources on campus for publishing their own home pages on the World Wide Web, so increases the likelihood that these Web sites will be censored by college administrators.

   This research examines what happens after college officials have decided to allow students to publish personal home pages. Specifically, this paper seeks to answer a narrower question: Are student personal home pages at public universities a form of student expression protected by the First Amendment?

   This paper concludes that students' personal home pages at public universities should be afforded the same First Amendment rights as print publications controlled by students. Thus, administrators should not be permitted to control the content of students' personal home pages, and, in fact, exercising editorial control would seem to place universities at a greater risk of assuming liability for defamatory statements made in those Web sites.

   Restricting the free speech and free press rights of students publishing home pages also would seem to defeat the public university's educational missions of exposing students to a wide range of intellectual experiences and of allowing them to express themselves in a marketplace of ideas.