Posted on 05/19/2017 7:08:01 AM PDT by Chengdu54
I'm a professor who often posts here and on FB. Two university officials are coming to my office today to speak with me about my posts. I told them this is a free speech issue. Feeling like I need legal advice. This is a public university.
Advice? Moral support?
I strongly second this.
Thanks, just a partial quote. The “lob one” remark. Lob what? ;)
(I'm Gonna get you in BIG trouble!)
Academic Freedom is what I would cite and I would also ask if anyone else posts on facebook, the DU or any other website as an employee and bring up the possibility of discrimination being practiced by the university by persecuting you. Most employers could claim, my computer my rules, yet as a professor you are entitled to academic freedom. Does free republic help you prepare for classes with ideas or discussion? That being said I would pull an attorney into the meeting just to let them know you are serious if they want to go there.
I’d say as long as you aren’t using your actual work time to post on these sites, and do it at home, on your own personal computer, I don’t see how they have any say in what you do on your own time. I personally don’t belong to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever other social media sites are out there. Your bosses will try to intimidate you, and can try to make life miserable for you, and that’s something you’ll have to deal with when and if it happens. As long as you’re not engaging in any type of illegal activity that could shed negatively on the school, IMHO they have no legal right to dog you. Good luck. It’s not easy having to deal with threats and intimidation. I had my own bullies to deal with during my career, but at least I can say I survived them all, and am a better person for it.
This is exactly why I only lurked on the FB page when the site was down. Someone, somewhere was obviously taking notes and doing research.
Turn the tables on them by demanding under what authority are they abridging your First Amendment Rights? Insist that you be allowed to record your conversation and that they give you written authority from the University and what policy(s) you are being accused of violating. Do not allow them to do a “fishing” expedition. Make them confine their questions to specific alleged violations of policy.
OK, now you have us all curious!
Did any more ever come of this?
No further threats to me. But I did decide to retire as of last summer. No room back there for my sort of thinking.
A happy retirement to you.
I hope to retire myself in two years.
Things are getting too weird in the working world.
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