Published: July 16, 2013

In the months before elections, members of the University of Colorado community occasionally receive e-mails from political candidates, including members of the Board of Regents. Because some of you have inquired whether these e-mail communications are appropriate, I asked the University鈥檚 legal counsel to advise me on this issue.

Our counsel has informed me that these e-mails are not illegal because University of Colorado e-mail addresses are generally public, and are published in publicly available directories. Consequently, political campaigns may identify those e-mails and send communications without using any University of Colorado information technology services.

The University of Colorado does not provide any political candidate with your e-mail addresses for campaign communications, nor do we endorse any political candidates or campaigns. You should feel free to support or not support any political candidates or campaigns as you see fit.

Because of limitations upon the use of University resources for political purposes, however, you should refrain from using University of Colorado e-mail accounts to make or forward any candidate or campaign-related message. Nor should you use University of Colorado information technology resources to make any financial contributions to political candidates or campaigns.

If you have any additional questions, please direct them to University Counsel Patrick O鈥橰ourke at Patrick.ORourke@cu.edu.

Thank you for your consideration of this information. 听