The administrators at Chicago State University have an interesting interpretation of free speech and academic freedom.
Last year, Chicago State officials instructed faculty and staff that only authorized university representatives could share information with the media — and that everything from opinion pieces to social media communications could require prior approval.
Officials later said the policy was under review.
According to the administrator quoted in that story, faculty are “free to blog”. However, one blog operated by faculty recevied a cease and desist from CSU’s lawyers because they were using the university logo. Reading through that blog, it’s clear why: they’re documenting falsified resumes used by administrators to get jobs at CSU.
jonas
At my institution, you can’t claim to speak to the media *on behalf* of the school — that’s for the official PR people — but nobody’s ever been told they can’t post on a blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. *about* the school as long as it’s clear they’re speaking as individuals. At least for now. Sigh — the rise of administrators over faculty in higher ed continues apace.
blueskies
“… they’re documenting falsified resumes used by administrators to get jobs at CSU.”
Who is watching the watchers? When faculty are hired at many universities, they go through a process that is tantamount to tenure review – multiple and varied sources are used, from previous employers, colleagues, and mentees through to potential competitors in the field. It’s exhaustive.
Somewhat similarly, when I hire the newest, greenest kid into my domain, the review process is exhaustive, almost like being reviewed for a top security post in government. It’s ridiculous given the nature of the work and the position.
Contrary to this, when our department hired a senior HR specialist, she was simply installed one day — no review, no CV, nothing. Quite a demonstration of power and derision.
The Fall of the Faculty and the Rise of the All-Administrative University:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Fall-Faculty-Benjamin-Ginsberg/dp/0199975434
dmsilev
CSU has had a whole litany of problems over the last several years, including a President who was forced out for financial irregularities (translation: Charged $$$ in personal expenses to a university credit card). The current President took office under a storm of protest from the faculty and elsewhere (basically, charges that he was selected via political cronyism and not any sort of merit) and it’s not surprising that there’s some …tension between the administration and the faculty.
OzarkHillbilly
Well, if freedom of religion is for corporations, it only follows that freedom of speech is for administrators.
Belafon
Sounds like the policy at my company, and really, at most corporations: The company owns what you create and you’re not authorized to speak for the company.
Is academic freedom something that is documented somewhere?
NotMax
Pace G. B. Shaw.
Those who can, do; those who can’t do, teach; those who can’t teach, administrate.
Cacti
@NotMax:
I thought it was: those who can’t teach, teach P.E.
Jebediah, RBG
Title is Zevon?
jonas
@Belafon:
Just in the practices, principles, and ideals of higher education since the Enlightenment.
Generally everyone understands that the administration speaks for the institution as a whole, but what’s going on at CSU is a fairly naked attempt to silence some dissident faculty by pretending like their use of a faculty community blog constituted a violation of this PR principle. That’s not the same as, say, a university retaining rights to certain patents when they’ve put up the money, labs, resources, etc. for the work that produced the breakthrough.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Jebediah, RBG: No, it’s from Sweet Home Chicago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8hqGu-leFc
Amir Khalid
@Jebediah, RBG:
It’s the blues classic Sweet Home Chicago.
Cacti
@jonas:
The university can demand that official logos, seals, etc. be removed from an unofficial blog run by university employees. The demand that they shut down altogether is a reach.
fka AWS
@Belafon: 1940 statement of principles on academic freedom and tenure.
ETA: Many universities have a similar statement somewhere in their governing documents, adapted from that statement.
Cacti
O/T
In a single sentence on Richard Cohen’s article, Dave Weigel proves he’s cut from the same, soft racism, bolt of cloth:
S-Curve
It seems that the administration has chosen to define “civility” as “doesn’t show us up.” I expected the blog to read like a Cole post after Steve ate his Thanksgiving dinner, but it’s really very restrained in a just-the-facts way.
maya
Didn’t know Chicago was a state. I thought it was a gangsta-style pizza joint.
NotMax
@Cacti
Only dons the sheet on Fridays?
piratedan
@Cacti: somehow… “first they came for the bigots” doesn’t have the same “to the barricades” panache that Dave might have thought it would….
Seth Owen
As Chicago State appears to be a taxpayer funded school and therefore and arm of the government the First Amendment applies, so we don’t have to get to the question of academic freedom. I’m certain a photo, taken from the sidewalk, of the cSU logo is not even close to the boundary of Dree Speech.
Walker
I smell AAUP sanctions.
Eric U.
if bigots couldn’t get jobs as columnists, most of the columnists in the country would be out of a job. Cohen has always been a reprehensible person though, he should be fired. I still don’t understand why the opinion writers still have jobs in the internet era. They are actually well-paid. You can get much better opinion on the web. Even a lot of the good guys usually mine lefty blogs for their subject matter.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Seth Owen: If you work for the government, they absolutely can put limits on your freedom of speech. Hence the whole concept of classified information.
Mandalay
From the cease and desist letter…”Thus, high standards of civility and professionalism are central tenants of the University’s values…”.
So much for high standards.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay:
ZOMG.
Next they’ll be telling us they have principals.
handsmile
@Villago Delenda Est:
The school certainly has principals. It’s whether it has principles that’s under debate.
— the Grammar police
I am not a kook
@Amir Khalid: OK Barry, get back to work and stop watching your old u-toob videos. I hear there’s a website needing your attention.
Jebediah, RBG
@polyorchnid octopunch: @Amir Khalid:
I misremembered – the Zevon lyric is:
Monkey wash, donkey rinse
Going to a party in the center of the earth
Monkey wash, donkey rinse
Honey, don’t you want to go?
For some reason I always hear it in my head as “baby” rather than “honey.”
ETA: In my head, I keep mis-hearing another of his lyrics as “I’m a refugee from the Manchin on the hill…”
Mandalay
@handsmile: The grammar police need to recalibrate their snarkometers.
handsmile
This incident brings to mind a recent controversy at John Hopkins University in which a senior administrator demanded that a university researcher delete a blog post critical of NSA surveillance practices. In that case, the embarrassment of national attention (and prompt action by the researcher himself) forced the official to rescind the order and apologize for “overreacting.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/09/10/johns-hopkins-dean-apologizes-for-censoring-professors-nsa-blog-post/
What with all the “crises” afflicting higher education (as I read about so often), one might imagine that university administrators would be applying themselves more industriously to tasks other than monitoring faculty/staff members’ blog posts.
@Mandalay:
Always useful advice, though I don’t see the malfunction here.
Eric U.
the crisis in higher education is pretty much a result of the malignant growth of administration and staff. At our fine university, as at many others, there was a building spree over the last decade. This adds more requirements for staff to keep those new buildings running. But now, they are all talking about online learning. This wouldn’t be quite as credible if they hadn’t ballooned class sizes because they are increasing admin posts at the expense of faculty. If you are going to on-line classes, then you don’t need all those new buildings. And furthermore, I wouldn’t take an online course from pedobear university if I could get the same course from a better instructor elsewhere. Or maybe I’m just a stupid engineer that doesn’t understand.
BGinCHI
@Eric U.: Exactly. Administrators at all levels trying to justify their jobs and their high salaries. What we need are part-time administrators and full time faculty/advisors, etc.
It’s good to see an engineer nail this problem….
LABiker
The first time I became aware of this institution was yesterday when I saw them on a list of the 10 worst party schools in America.
http://www.complex.com/city-guide/2013/11/the-worst-party-schools-in-the-us/chicago-state-university
Steeplejack
@handsmile:
Your correction seems to indicate that you missed VDE’s joke. His use of principals was deliberate.
handsmile
@Steeplejack:
WTF, I said, and then for the first time noticed the “tenants” in Mandalay’s original post (#23). Steeplejack/Mandalay, thank you for your kind instruction. Mea culpa, VDE. I’m going to go sit in the corner for a while now. Or take a short ride in one of VDE’s tumbrels.
Steeplejack
@handsmile:
Nobody said Grammar Police was easy. Be careful out there.
/Badge 4690
“To Correct and Serve”
Cheap Jim
I suppose they couldn’t just use the disclaimer Bob Park used to use on his blog: “Opinions are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the University [of Maryland], but they should be.”
Glocksman
@handsmile:
Perhaps its just because I’m not a university administrator and I Just Don’t Understand™, but it seems to me that faculty blog posts would be an invaluable insight into just what the faculty really thinks and as such would be useful to competent administrators as one of the tools in their leadership toolbox.