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The Recording Industry Association of America has announced that it is abandoning its legal strategy of bringing large-scale lawsuits against students and others who download music from the internet.
The RIAA has been bringing such suits for more than five years, often targeting students who used college networks for file-sharing. According to one expert quoted in the Chronicle article, such suits sometimes forced students to drop out of college.
Steven L. Worona, the director of policy and networking programs at the education-policy group Educause, said the move demonstrated that the RIAA understands that “their sue-the-customer, scorched-earth business model has not worked.”
Black on Campus has a pair of new posts up on the issue of alcohol consumption on campus, and they’re both well worth reading.
First, there’s a quick overview of the situation, and an endorsement of lowering the drinking age back to 18. Dr. Mance argues that “the current prohibition policy for drinkers under the age of 21 encourages an illicit alcohol culture, and one that is characterized by the same excesses and extremes (and denial) that accompany any illicit activity.” (Mance also links to Choose Responsibility, a drinking-age reform group that arose out of college administrators’ frustration with the status quo.)
The second post explores the fact that drinking rates are lower among black college students than among white students, and lower still among students at historically black colleges and universities. The post concludes with a provocative quote from a black student leader on the relationship between binge drinking and bias crime.
An IT administrator at Amherst College has posted a Harper’s Index style list of facts about the incoming class. Some fascinating stuff there with relevance for student organizing.
The relationship of college students to the internet has been transformed in the last few years. In 2003, 33% of Amherst applicants applied online. This year, 89% did. Of 438 first-year students this fall, just 14 brought desktop computers with them, and only 5 have landline phone service. (That’s five students, not five percent.)
On the other hand, the class of 2012 Facebook group has 432 members.
Tennessee State University has become the first public college in the United States to prevent students from accessing the anonymous gossip site JuicyCampus.com, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
TSU officials say this is the first time they have blocked access to any website from the campus network.
At least one private institution, Georgia’s Hampton University, has also blocked JuicyCampus. Both Hampton and TSU are historically black universities.
Two stories: the New York Times reports on American students’ efforts to live according to principles of environmental sustainability in the dorms, and WireTap magazine reports on student organizing around sustainable food practices on campus.
studentactivism.net 
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