Cal Poly professors can continue to view adult pornography on state-owned computers in their offices, so long as it does not create a hostile work environment.

The executive committee of the school's Academic Senate, which helps regulate campus computing rules, considered a resolution Tuesday that would have barred professors from looking at such images. But the committee struck down the proposal on a 6-4 vote, keeping it from going to the full senate.

The move kills the resolution to ban pornography on campus, but leaves open the potential that it could come back in a newly drafted form.

The executive committee will not meet again until this fall.

"People in the workplace are enjoying the privilege of sexual entertainment with state resources," said Linda Vanasupa, the materials engineering department chairwoman.

"There are people who feel this is not appropriate. My colleagues don't seem to be willing to give up that privilege," Vanasupa said through tears after the meeting.

Vanasupa drafted the resolution after her former boss viewed pornography on his office computer and, she said, made her work environment hostile.

Debating the resolution

The resolution allowed for professors to view sexually explicit images for academic purposes. But some faculty members said it did not adequately allow for academic research or classroom presentations.

"In physiology, we talk about sexual excitement," biology professor Susan Elrod said during the debate. "How is the biology faculty not going to get called on the carpet if we show nude pictures to our class?"

Vanasupa argued that those kinds of academic-related presentations would be OK under her resolution.

Dissenters also argued that the proposal infringed on academic freedom and their First Amendment rights.

History professor Manzar Foroohar said she envisioned administrators having the power to check what Web sites professors have viewed.

"That would create a hostile work environment -- if I had the administration checking on me all the time," said Foroohar, who leads Cal Poly's faculty union.

Some faculty also opposed the resolution because it did not have a specific punishment attached.

Vanasupa said professors would be on their honor to follow the policy. If the viewing of pornography created a hostile work environment, she said, administrators should investigate it and take appropriate action based on the case.

No other committee members spoke in favor of the resolution. The vote was taken by secret ballot.

Past problems

Vanasupa's proposal came after her ex-boss, former Materials Engineering Department Chairman Robert Heidersbach, was convicted on a misdemeanor charge last year for improperly using the computer at his Cal Poly office to download more than 13,000 adult pornographic images over a two-month period, according to court records.

Heidersbach was charged because he downloaded pornographic images, rather than just viewing them.

After police began an investigation, the university placed him on a two-quarter sabbatical. Heidersbach no longer works at Cal Poly, but university administrators would not explain whether he resigned or was let go.

Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating and will soon likely recommend felony charges against another former Poly department chair who allegedly viewed child pornography on multiple university-owned computers in 2001, according to a federal law enforcement official and university sources.

During a February interview, Provost Paul Zingg didn't specifically acknowledge the two pornography cases. But he said in "the cases I am aware of, the university acted decisively and properly in order to send a clear message that there are boundaries with regard to the use of state equipment."

New ideas

Cal Poly students are not allowed to view pornography in computer labs, because it could disturb others around them, Zingg said Tuesday. The same would be true for faculty viewing those images in labs, he said.

But teachers have First Amendment and academic freedom rights to view adult pornography in their offices, Zingg said, so long as it does not create a hostile work environment.

Zingg plans to form a task force -- including Vanasupa, next year's Academic Senate Chairman George Lewis and others -- to create ideas on how to avoid hostile work environments.

Vanasupa said she doesn't intend to bring up another resolution to the senate. While she has no plans to sue the university for what she said was a hostile work environment in her department, she has consulted attorneys and is open to the idea.

"I'm really not interested in personal gain," she said. "My goal was just to create a better policy. ... Either I failed to communicate that or people refused to see that."