Once again, let us open our hymnals to the Book of McEnroe, and sing lustily and with good courage. The University of Illinois tells faculty
they could not wear political buttons on campus or feature bumper stickers on cars parked in campus lots unless the messages on those buttons and stickers were strictly nonpartisan
Me, I’m at least as squeamish as Weatherson about political advocacy on campus. And I can just about, if I squint real hard, see the case against buttons, on the ground that while you’re on campus you represent the state and in that capacity you can’t advocate for a particular political candidate. (Although it’s quite likely that anything a professor likes, the students will reflexively reject.) Even so I’m reasonably sure there’s a solid First Amendment challenge to that stricture.
But seriously, no political bumper stickers? That seems an extraordinary reach. How far is it from there to say, no lawn signs, because people in your neighborhood know you’re a professor, so you represent the state, and….
10 comments
September 30, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Jonathan Dresner
I’m reminded of the early days of Japan’s modern political era, the late 19th century, when teachers were barred from attending political meetings due to their status as state employees. Women were barred as well, though whether it was to protect them from politics or vice versa is unclear.
September 30, 2008 at 12:55 pm
G C
We got an email like that recently here. Nothing so onerous as the U. of Ill. rules, but we were told that we can’t use our .edu email accounts for any sort of activism or political organizing, a claim I can’t believe is legally enforceable.
September 30, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Jonathan Rees
Does the University of Illinois system crave lawsuits? There’s not even a hint that anybody had complained about this alleged problem before this e-mail went out.
On another note, I like the part about not going to partisan political rallies on campus. John McCain is actually showing up on my campus this Friday. The University snagged 350 tickets explicitly for students, faculty and staff.
By the way, the building holds 3,500. Barack spoke to 14,000 in Pueblo about two weeks ago.
September 30, 2008 at 3:10 pm
bitchphd
I had my DNC buttons all over my bag for several weeks while I went in to teach every day. I eventually took them off b/c they were clanky and annoying. If my students didn’t like it, I guess I’ll hear about it in the evals.
September 30, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Brad
Nothing so onerous as the U. of Ill. rules, but we were told that we can’t use our .edu email accounts for any sort of activism or political organizing, a claim I can’t believe is legally enforceable.
Actually, I think that this is enforceable. Email is owned by the university, run on university networks with university computers. There are have been a bunch of lawsuits where legal entities have had to cough up all correspondence relating to an issue and that includes any and all emails archived.
The faculty head of local computing support group is worried that at some point we will be hit with a lawsuit and get in a lot of trouble because we do not archive all emails. The things not covered in grad school….
September 30, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Dan
Hah. You academic types have it easy. Try being a clergyperson in an election year. I don’t dare mention Alaska in a sermon these days.
October 1, 2008 at 5:23 am
Prof Burgos
This sounds like caving to the Horowitz loons (“liberal bias! professors are Democrats!”). And as much as I hate invoking the Slippery Slope, because God knows it gets invoked enough everywhere else in our discourse…
Slippery Slope!
If, as a professor at a state-funded university, I am an AGENT of the state, then should the state decree that my field of research is out-of-bounds I would be compelled to abandon it, would I not?
Would my presumptive principal-agent relationship with the state mean that the state could compel me, as an employee, to do X instead of Y?
Let us say that California voters pass Proposition 8, banning same-sex measure. Let us say further that, at some point, the voters pass a referendum that says “gay is bad.” Would this mean that every faculty member in the UC and Cal State systems that does Queer Studies is out of a job? That they could not mention equality of marriage in class because this would constitute “partisanship”?
Or, to be even sillier, if some artist — Jackson Pollock or Keith Haring or whomever — offended the state’s sensibilities, could I be directed to take down the Guggenheim gift shop print from my office walls?
This seems to me to be an issue that merits further reflection — just what is the relationship of the academic freedom-enjoying faculty member to the state that pays her salary?
October 1, 2008 at 6:02 am
Vance
At least out here, the traditional way for the university to resist such encroachment on academic freedom is to preemptively promise not to do anything offensive.
October 1, 2008 at 6:05 am
jhm
I suspect that the policy is a backdoor way of relieving staff of prime parking spaces.
October 6, 2008 at 3:01 pm
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