That justice prevailed seems obvious from afar, but it had me wondering if the situation would have been far stickier in a slightly different setting. I'll get to that in a moment.

The university initially argued that the student, Kara Spencer, had violated acceptable-use policy by failing to gain prior permission for her e-mail, which reached about 8% of the MSU faculty (any amount above 30 messages triggered the provision). EFF called that restriction unconstitutional and was preparing to file legal action.

From the EFF press release: "We're pleased that MSU has reversed course and will not only drop the charge against Ms. Spencer, but will reconsider its flawed policies," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "When a school's anti-spam policy requires students to get approval before they discuss school policy with school officials, it has plainly left the realm of protecting against spam and has violated the Constitution."

Score one for the First Amendment. However, the thought did occur to me: Would the issue be viewed any differently -- by the law or civil libertarians -- had this been a private university instead of a state (read: government-run) one?

I asked Cohn via e-mail. Her reply: "It would have been a more complicated analysis but I don't know that it would necessarily have meant that the policy was OK either."