Faculty and staff at Emporia State and other regents schools may now be fired because of what they post on Twitter, Facebook and other social media.
In December, KBOR unanimously passed a new policy that restricts the use of social media if messages aren’t considered in the “best interests” of the institution, in the view of the president or chancellor of the school.
Because of the backlash from faculty across the state and elsewhere, the Kansas Board of Regents backpedaled on the policy and announced Friday a working group of two representatives from each state institution that will study the policy and give recommendations to the board. Meanwhile, the policy remains in effect.
The representatives that have been chosen from ESU for the KBOR work group are Max McCoy, an associate professor of journalism and adviser to The Bulletin, and Kevin Johnson, ESU’s general counsel.
“The chairman (of KBOR) has asked for any recommendations (from the work group) to be brought to the Governance Committee by April (of 2014),” said Breeze Richardson, a spokesperson for KBOR. “Implementation would depend on what was recommended and what kind of discussion ensues.”
In December, a letter collectively signed by a trio of free speech groups was sent to Fred Logan, KBOR chair, asking the board to reconsider. The groups were the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, National Coalition Against Censorship and American Civil Liberties Union.
“This policy poses an impermissible threat to the freedom of expression and academic freedom of faculty members employed by Kansas’ public institutions of higher education,” the letter said.
The ESU Faculty Senate also voted during an emergency meeting Jan. 14 to ask the board to reconsider the policy. The vote, 22-0-0, was in favor of a resolution asking KBOR “to suspend the policy and to include faculty,” said Kevin Rabas, associate professor of English and one of the faculty members who asked for the emergency meeting. Rabas said that including faculty system-wide was “a step that should have been made from the outset.”
While specific objections to the policy differed, Rabas said the faculty was united in its opposition to the policy.
“The ESU faculty have sent a strong message to the Kansas Board of Regents in the form of a resolution that condemns the new social media policy and asks KBOR to suspend the (the policy) because (it) infringes on academic freedom and First Amendment rights,” Rabas said. “Furthermore, the resolution asks KBOR to eliminate or amend the social media policy, as a course of action.”
Rabas added that he thought the policy was inconsistent with the mission of higher education.
“During a time when universities are asked to reach out to students and engage with a tech-savvy population, it is retrograde to muzzle online free speech,” Rabas said.
During an interview with The Bulletin, President Michael Shonrock said that no member of faculty or staff had ever been punished at ESU for use of social media.
“It’s important to understand the difference between academic freedom and the First Amendment because they’re sometimes discussed interchangeably,” Shonrock said.
A recent letter that was signed by more than 80 distinguished professors at Kansas State and University of Kansas also has people talking. The letter asked the regents to withdraw the policy until the work group could make its recommendation.
“With the policy in place during this period of review, faculty and staff at Kansas universities would no longer have freedom of speech, nor the academic freedom necessary to do their jobs, nor tenure,” the professors said.
To view KBOR’s new social media policy, click here.
