In light of a legally questionable harassment policy, University of Wisconsin Housing has changed its policy to better define what qualifies as harassment and protect the constitutional rights of students.

The original harassment policy, which failed to properly define "harassment," could punish constitutionally protected speech and could also punish viewpoints the university disagreed with.

However, thanks to a cooperative effort between UW Housing and UW's American Civil Liberties Union chapter, a newly formed harassment policy will better protect both the university and students, said UW Housing Director Paul Evans.

"We want this to be a good policy," Evans said. "We want this to stand up legally."

The new policy, finalized last week, defines harassment as verbal threats, intimidation, or conduct which causes or incites a breach of peace, significantly interferes with students' educational performance, opportunities or benefits, or emotional or physical well-being.

In addition, the new policy continues protection of student First Amendment rights.

This after negotiations between UW Housing and the ACLU-UW, which began in August 2005.

ACLU members approached UW Housing, arguing their harassment policy did not stand up to the general norms of legal practice and was not worded correctly. In addition, the ACLU made reference to an earlier incident, which occurred at Chadbourne Residential College in October 2004.

According to a student involved in the incident, students from an all-male second floor created a makeshift fort out of blankets and other items on a third-floor all-female den. At the time, both the second and third Chadbourne floors used the third floor den, as the second floor den had been converted to extended housing for residents.

The group of residents, dubbing themselves "Barbequebarians" after the name of a failed entry for the dorm's annual Olympics, displayed the logo they had entered for the contest on their makeshift fort. The logo stated, "We're Gonna Mesquite All Over Your Mother's Grill!" and featured a cartoon bear grilling.

"The housefellow came and told us to take it down," the student said. "So we took it down and cleaned it up."

Several weeks later, despite the students' immediate compliance, Chadbourne administrators sent notices to the students stating they may be removed from Housing for their actions.

"When we had the meetings, the reason they said [we could be kicked out] was because it was considered sexual harassment," the student said.

The student was issued a notice of housing contract jeopardy, while another student was officially removed from Housing.

ACLU-UW did not pursue the matter initially.

"After some time however, we began to reevaluate this question by looking into the specific policy [the Barbequebarians] were supposedly punished under," said Robert Phansalkar, ACLU-UW president and the new policy's chief architect, in an e-mail. "We found what was basically a legal mess of a policy."

Both Evans and Phansalkar said defining harassment was a difficult mission without a strong policy.

"It's hard to know a lot [of] times," Evans said. "People might feel harassed and they might not act or report it … we're making sure students respect each other and understand how it's important if you're going to be a really good community member that you're going to be respectful of everyone in that community."

Phansalkar said UW Housing was "very cooperative on every level" and acted rationally in changing the policy.

"We felt it was more important to address the importance of protecting First Amendment rights and students from harassment and not starting a blame game in which nobody wins," Phansalkar said in the e-mail. "I believe that was one of the biggest goals behind this, to help Housing understand why these issues were important, because we felt that if Housing knew what the issue was, then they would simply change the policy."

When the new policy is implemented in Housing's student handbook and other areas of housing, incidents like the Barbequebarians situation may be handled differently.

"I feel a lot better [about the new policy]," the student said. "We kind of felt persecuted almost. If something like this happens again, no one is going to be kicked out for a very vague reason."