Following a protest by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and other members of the Free Expression Network, officials at the University of California, San Diego, dropped plans to discipline two student groups, including a collective that runs a bookstore, for linking their university-supported Web sites to groups that the State Department lists as "foreign terrorist organizations." The university claimed that the links violated the USA Patriot Act's ban on providing "material support" to terrorist groups.

In their letter to Chancellor Robert Dynes, the FEN member said that banning computer links violates the First Amendment. "Americans have a right to inform themselves about any group, no matter how abhorrent its positions. Acts in furtherance of terrorism are prohibited; speech about it is not," the letter said. The letter can be viewed at http://www.freeexpression.org/newswire/1008_2002.htm.

Several hours after the university received the letter, Vice Chancellor Joseph Watson told a reporter for CNET News that the university was dropping its threat to discipline the students. "We agree with the signers of this letter that links are a First Amendment rights," Watson said.

However, the controversy over the university's Web policy was not completely resolved. Although Watson said that the university would no longer seek the removal of links to "terrorist" groups, he added that it will insist that students delete a collection of files on the university's computers that include political statements by the Kurdistan Workers Party, a group on the State Department's list. ABFFE is seeking a clarification of the university's latest demand.

Pat Conroy, Dave Barry and novelist Cassandra King drew an SRO crowd of over 150 to Books & Books in Miami for an ABFFE fundraiser on Sept. 21, the first night of Banned Books Week. Conroy talked about the effort by the estate of Margaret Mitchell to block the publication of "The Wind Done Gone," Alice Randall's satire of "Gone With The Wind." Conroy wrote a letter to the judge in the case to support Randall and to tell him that that the Mitchell estate had been guilt of attempting to suppress unflattering portraits of the book before. When Conroy was considering writing an authorized sequel, the estate lawyers insisted that he sign a statement promising not to mention homosexuality or miscegination. Before breaking off the talks, Conroy told his lawyer to inform the estate that his sequel would open with these words: "After Rhett Butler made love to Ashley Wilkes, he lit a cigarette and said, 'Ashley, did I ever tell you my grandmother was black?'"