Just out of curiosity, if you walked into your boss’s office, and he was sitting there, reading through your posts on this board, and he asked you, “Is this you?”, how would you feel about him making decisions of your future employment based on what he reads here?
If he runs his classes well, does good research and produces good peer-reviewed books, yeah, he should be considered for a promotion like a department chair. That’s what promoting on merit (as opposed to butt-kissing ability) is all about.
People are not “given” those things. They generally earn them with years of good scholarship, teaching, and service to their institution.
Firstly, your “molding young minds” simply repeats the silly notion that academics do nothing but propagandize their students, and that the students themselves are nothing but shapeless lumps of clay who will uncritically accept everything they’re told. It’s simply not true.
Second, in a legal sense, the taxpayers’ nickel part is actually relevant here, because (in my friend’s case), as a public institution, his employer is required to respect his rights of free expression outside the classroom. Also, even if it weren’t a public university, one of the guiding principles of academia for the past century or so has been academic freedom, the idea that you don’t lose your job just because you happen to say some things that make some people uncomfortable. The principles and procedures of academic freedom were enacted precisely because, in many colleges and universities in the late 19th and early 20th century, it was not unusual for faculty to be fired for their political views, or for personal stuff that the university President thought was inappropriate.
More generally, if the core of your argument is going to be nothing more interesting or sophisticated than “Yes, they do their jobs, but they should still be fired for radical tweeting,” then we have nothing else to talk about. You’ve made very clear, in this thread and others like it (this one, for example) that, even though you post in Great Debates, your main purpose is not really to debate the issue at all; it’s simply to keep reiterating your stereotyped and one-dimensional view of academia.
I really don’t have anything else to say to you on the matter.
Maybe you could explain for me a bit more about what you believe constitutes professional behavior from an educator. I’m interested to understand the professional ethics of a person who believes that a university professor should be fired for social media comments unrelated to his or her classroom work, and yet who also believes that it’s appropriate for a school teacher to bring up God and religion and divine intervention in a high school science classroom.
Why not examine the possibility that aliens are messing with our climate?
There has to be some minimum standard as to what constitutes science. With your standard we’d have to teach all kinds of unsupported ideas. We’d be badly misrepresenting the nature of the scientific enterprise to people we’re supposed to be educating about it.
Classic 1984-think. I doubt ‘impressionable young minds’ are quite as impressionable as you appear to think, or that he wouldn’t get called out for unethical behavior in the classroom. All it takes is one.
You bring up how academics ARE protected because years ago they could be fired for say being a democrat so now, they have the freedom to say everything they want. Basically am I getting your argument right? Well I’m glad YOU still have first amendment rights because as THIS article points out, other people do NOT.
Let me ask you a question. Would you agree with me that academics live in a kind of “bubble” separate from other careers?
BUT, the rest of us dont live in your bubble. We know we all CAN and DO get fired for saying things on social media or over drinks. According to THIS article, 18% of employers have fired someone over what they said on social media.
I can do my job perfectly. Be on time. Do my work. Get good reviews. BUT, I can still be fired for saying the wrong thing on Facebook.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is I dont feel academics should be given a free pass when others do not. If not fired, then at least exposed on sites like the one mentioned.
Takethis article about a reporter fired over a tweet.
You see, all these people were fired from their jobs YET you in academia are exempt.
Is that right? Or do you still think academics should always get a free pass?
Take the example of Duck Dynasty. I’d guess its not your cup of tea but the scoop is the 71 year old patriarch of the family was fired for saying his open, honest opinions on gays and blacks.
It didn’t matter if he had say, done his job wrong on the show. Had he missed rehearsals? Refused to work with others? Nope. He was fired for expressing his opinions. Opinions common for a person of his age and background.
In this day and age one better be damn careful to cover their electronic tracks. So yes, I wouldnt let my boss see everything I post on chat rooms. I’m careful to be pretty clean on Facebook.
But then. I’m just a technician, not a professor who can say anything they damn well want and get away scot free.
There are plenty of small Christian focused private schools who are not bastions of liberalism. MOST of the private colleges around here would be somewhat moderate in their political leanings, but really only one is a hotbed of liberalism (and if you go there expecting anything else, you didn’t bother to do any pre-selection research). At least two are very conservative in their leanings. With many private schools under some sort of religious banner, it isn’t uncommon to find that tilts their teachings.
But this is the nice thing about privatization and school choice - which is really what college is about - if you can afford it - and can get in - you can hand pick your school to meet your requirements. You can go to Bob Jones or you can go to Antioch College - or you can go to thousands of schools that are somewhere in between those two ends of the spectrum. If more people are interested in Bob Jones, Bob Jones type schools will expand. If more people are interested in Antioch, schools like that will expand.
Well, you may call it a bubble, but those of us in academia describe it as the way things ought to be. Instead of trying to trample on our rights you should consider fighting for your own against unfair employers.
That’s not the fault of academics, though. That’s the fault of conservative’s love of “Right to Work” laws, that allow employers to fire their employees for any reason or no reason at all. You want protection from being fired over your Facebook posts? Tell your congressman to start repealing these laws.
How is anyone preventing an alumni from finding out any of this information by their own investigation. The objection is to biased, partisan sites doing hatchet jobs and cherry-picking information in order to damage the reputations of academics whose political and social beliefs do not coincide with theirs.
Any computer science major (and some minors) will be glad to explain how if your boss really wants that information (to smear you) they can get it. Nothing dies on the internet.
I’ve always enjoyed the wonderful irony of the “Right to Work” moniker, which is really a euphemism for “right to bust unions, and right to fire anyone we don’t like for no reason at all”!
Apparently what Urbanredneck wants is to be able to fire university academics the same way, for no reason at all. The concept of tenure would of course also be swept away. If the university administration doesn’t like the research you’re doing – or if they just don’t like your face – you’re gone.
I see lots of great lucrative potential here. Fire all the pesky climate scientists, for instance, and get a terrific research grant from Exxon Mobil to study the beneficial effects of CO2 on plant growth and the health benefits of breathing smog! I see a bright new renaissance of academia here!
Nitpick: “Right to work” is not the same thing as “at-will employment”. The former means that unions can’t form except under certain conditions. The latter means that employers can fire employees for any reason except for a short list of protected statuses. Only 28 of the 50 states are right-to-work, but all or almost all (depending on where you draw the line) are at-will to some degree or another.
