How do I remove the junk mail folder from a gmail imap account?

I recently began accessing my gmail account through Outlook 2007, on Windows XP Pro SP3.  This is the only email account I have set up in outlook on my computer.  Prior to this, I used the web interface at http://mail.google.com/  Since I have started using Outlook, a folder labeled "Junk E-mail" has appeared in the list of imap folders both in outlook and online in gmail.  My goal/desire is to be rid of this unused folder.

I have disabled all spam filtering in outlook in tools/options/junk e-mail/options by setting it to "No automatic filtering".  Within outlook, if I try to delete the folder, I get the message "Cannot delete this folder. You may not have appropriate permissions. See the folder owner or your administrator to change your permissions."  If I delete it from mail.google.com in the labels section, outlook will delete it during the next imap sync then immediately recreate it.

I'm the primary user of this (home) pc and I am using an administrator account.

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