College student says he’s being punished for Web site

A student at Lyndon State College in Vermont contends that he is being punished for creating a Web site that takes the school to task for allegedly ignoring antigay hate crimes. Jacob Fortes says the Web site cost him a work study job in the office of college president Carol Moore and jeopardized his post as a dormitory staffer. On the site Fortes accuses school officials of ignoring concerns about hate crimes, including antigay attacks that Fortes maintains have happened on campus. Fortes says that he is straight but spoke out because some of his gay friends expressed their fears to him. Fortes was facing a closed disciplinary hearing Thursday regarding accusations that he had hacked into school computers. A local newspaper, The [St. Johnsbury, Vt.] Caledonian-Record, was seeking a court injunction to have the hearing open to the press.