and I think that is correct. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Aug. 2 in White Buffalo Ventures LLC v. University of Texas at Austin (5th Cir., No. 04-50362, 8/02/05) that UT qualified for the ISP exemption in the CAN-SPAM Act (15 U.S.C. §§7701-7713), which permits ISPs to impose more stringent regulations on SPAM, despite the Act's general pre-emption clause. The court also found UT's policy was a constitutional regulation of commercial speech.
I don't see any reason why universities who act as ISPs for their students should be treated any differently than any other ISPs. I also don't see why public universities should be treated differently than private universities. If anything, I think all universities role in loco parentis should give them greater ability to protect their students interests than the law sometimes allows.
This is separate from an analysis of the second question-- whether regulation of SPAM is constitutional. And I remain uncertain how I feel about that. I think the decision is correct under the law. I'm less sure that the law's distinction between commercial and non-commercial speech is valid. Certainly under the text of the First Amendment no distinction can be sustained. As to its purpose, an analysis I'm usually more comfortable with, I don't see that the unwanted email I receive is fostering democratic values (maybe purient ones..). Yet I'm not convinced that a 'substantial government interest' in protecting users from the "hassle" of unwanted spam --safeguarding the time and interests of users of UT e-mail accounts (user interests) and protecting the efficient of its networks and servers (server efficiency)-- is sufficient to condone an outright ban on speech, even if commercial.
But given the court's decision that the Act is constitutional, it should be applied equally to all universities, public or private.