Should students be punished for recording their instructors?

Great Debates
61

Not surprisingly, there appears to be a number of participants in this discussion who are biased towards believing that educators are somehow to be distrusted, that, in the absence of the ability to nail them to the wall with video evidence, they’ll get away with pedagogical murder.

I wonder why it is our society cannot accept authority figures as having good motives any more. Having been both an attorney and an educator, the fact that I was distrusted in each occupation by a wide segment of the population was disheartening.

So consider some things in this discussion:

  1. California’s Legislature specifically said in passing its law that they found the idea of a professor being recorded without his/her knowledge to have a chilling and detrimental effect upon a college education. In other words, they understand that professors will offer opinions unpopular with some of their students; that’s part of what we want to have happen. They may even offer those opinions in ways that are insulting to the opinions of some of those students. That’s too bad; “suck it up, buttercup” is the message of the Legislature. But if the professor is faced with the worry that his private conversation with his students will become publicly scrutinized, he’s likely to reduce his offerings to mere pablum.

  2. It’s quite silly to say that you “must” have the ability to record what a professor says to prove that he/she said it. As pointed out above, there are numerous witnesses to the statement available in a lecture. A good investigation will out the facts.

  3. For those of you (bobot) still laboring under the apprehension that the union representing the professor at Orange Coast College has the ability to suspend or expel the student, please, please at least get this simple bit of factual understanding correct: it cannot.

62

Is it actually the American standard law you can walk into any place of employment that is not open to the general public - that is not the open public place accessible by any person - and begin to record / photograph / video the employees / officers?

63

Actually, i was under the impression that bobot was being a bit sarcastic in his most recent post.

64

No, it’s not, and i don’t think that anyone in this thread has argued that it is.

What we do have, though, is a more general principle that the workings of government and government employees should be, as far as practicable, open and transparent to the public that they serve and represent.

In many states, there are laws that allow the salaries of state employees to be made public. Many states have open records laws that allow the public to view certain internal records and communications, even if such records are not publicly released in the normal course of day-to-day operations.

For example, a member of the public concerned about my performance as a public employee could make a public records request to view my work emails.

Now, this doesn’t mean that they get my login details and are allowed to go through every email i’ve ever sent. And there is certain “purely personal information” that is not subject to such laws. But it does mean that, if the request met the legal requirements, my institution would be obliged to look at my emails and turn over any that were relevant to “the conduct of the public’s business.”

Before releasing the records, they would be able to redact things like student names and other information that might compromise other people’s privacy, and they are also allowed to charge a “reasonable” fee for searching, collecting, and providing the information. Requests can be denied or limited if “the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record,” but the government agency denying the request has to make that argument.

In general, i think that these sorts of “sunshine” laws, which are designed to make government and the public sector open and transparent, are good things. But they can also be used to intimidate, and to harass employees who are just going about their daily business.

While accountability is a good thing, it doesn’t mean that anyone can go anywhere and record anything. Even as public employees, we have significant rights to privacy in our own records and our workplaces. A desire to hold public employees accountable also cannot be used to disrupt their day-to-day work, because that in itself would be detrimental to the public.

Unfortunately, some members of the public have an attitude to public employees that is best expressed as, “My taxes pay your salary, so you are obliged to obey my every command and act as my servant.” As DSYoungEsq also notes, there are some professions where the members are presumed by many people, a priori, to be untrustworthy and dangerous.

His example of lawyers is a good one; i’ve been quite amazed, during my 16 years in the United States, how many Americans can both defend the protections and the ideals of their legal system, and yet hold in contempt the very people who help to sustain it. For example, some people don’t seem to see the contradiction when they argue in favor of presumed innocence and the right to counsel, and yet also slam defense lawyers as immoral apologists for murderers and rapists.

65

It is the implicit idea I see in those who are saying they expect the students to be able to film a professor or a teacher without the explicit permision.

This is not then a public area, it is extraordinary…

How such idea can be tolerated is very puzzling to me.

In my system these things are forbidden, no matter what the politics.

I can only understand this as part of the american tendency to radical dislike of intellectualism for it is then a carve out that they would presumably not tolerate in their own non public places of work, no?

66

:smiley:

It concerns me that there are such strong opinions concerning unions in this country- specifically strong opinions against unions; and at the same time such a deep misunderstanding about what unions do.

67

Without reading in detail, I really don’t have any specific knowledge on the issue, so I’ll bow to yours.

68

Well you have to know some background on California legislators and the union that represents those professors, the CTA or California Teachers Association.
Years ago a California governor (I think it was Jerry Brown) was elected with strong support of that union. Thereafter that governor signed legislation requiring all California college professors to join said union AND pay dues to it. The CTA is probably the most powerful political force in California and NOBODY MESSES WITH THE CTA.

So in effect, the government and the union work hand in hand. A student might “win” but they get nothing while the professor is still free to do whatever they want.

Bottom line is unless the case is very egregious, the professor always wins. Even Mhendo mentions that on his campus a professor was found guilty of discrimination but the only punishment was a mark on her record. She still collected a paycheck.

69

Can you elaborate more on this?

Since the student “won”, what did they get? Ex. refund on fees?

And what does a “mark” on a professors record mean? She still kept her job, paycheck, office, seniority, and retirement didnt she?

70

Well look at what happened at in 2006 at Duke University and the “Gang of 88”.They got away with massive character assassination of those young men. They never lost their jobs and most were even promoted to positions like deans and now collect 6 figure paychecks.

So how can we trust college professors when they DO INDEED get away with pedagogical murder?

71

If you’re going to start GD threads, maybe see if you can develop your ability to debate and deal with complex issues in a thoughtful way.

First, having a complaint like this upheld doesn’t mean that you “win” anything. It’s not a competition. There was no tangible harm done to the student, just like there was no tangible harm done to the students in your OP. Do you really think those students deserve a refund on their fees for a 30-second political speech given by one professor? If you do, you should probably just stop addressing me in this thread, because i’m only interested in discussing the issue rationally.

As for the teacher, do you believe that every person who makes a minor error of judgment in their job should be fired? Do you comprehend the fact that a person can do something wrong, but not wrong enough to require termination? Again, if you don’t understand those things, just let me know and i’ll bow out of the conversation while you go and educate yourself.

72

Show me it’s more than a drop in a bucket and then we can talk about generally distrusting an entire profession.

73

Because I know statistics and your argument is shitty? Even your example can be the result of bad information they got and not malice, but the point here is that most teachers do their thankless jobs because they saw it as their calling.

And I had already plenty of experience to report that many “little angels” are constantly looking for new ways to annoy or to make the teachers cry or to discourage them.

74

Ok, I admit getting fired is too far.

But again I’d like to ask, what does a “mark” on their record mean?

If the student did not “win” then what did they get? Were they informed of the outcome of the investigation? How does the student know their efforts to get justice were listened to?

Thing is if the students do not see the professor getting ANY kind of “punishment” then again, how do they know they can speak up? I mean if all they get is a letter saying something like “the investigation is ongoing and we are not going to discuss anything due to privacy” or some such, how does the student know the whole thing wasnt just swept under the rug?

75

Take a wild guess.

It means pretty much what it means in just about any context: that the infraction has been recorded, and will be taken into account if there is another incident in which the professor oversteps the professional boundaries. It’s similar to what some private workplaces call a warning or a note in your file.

And it’s also similar to the way that we deal with student infractions. When a student plagiarizes in my class, i am required by the university to make a report to the Dean of Students. The purpose of this is not to punish the student; any punishment (grade reduction; failure of the paper) for a single act of plagiarism is left up to me, the instructor. The reason for reporting it to the Dean is so that it is now on record that the student has been warned, and that another act of plagiarism (reported by me, or by a different professor) will be considered a more serious violation, and might incur penalties beyond the individual class, such as academic probation or suspension from the university. A third infraction could lead to expulsion.

The mark in the teacher’s record serves a similar purpose. Is the idea that a second or third infraction is more serious than a first infraction really such an alien concept to you that this all needed to be spelled out in such detail? Have you never, in your life, worked in an environment where there were warnings, and opportunities to fix the problem, given to employees who broke the rules or who performed poorly?

I don’t know exactly what the student is told. I know that they are informed of the general finding of the investigation, but i’m not sure what they’re told about specific remedies or punishments inflicted on the professor.

If you complain about someone (a waiter, a store clerk, whatever) to their employer, do you have a right to know whether your complaint led to a pay reduction or a termination or whatever? And, despite being a public employee, the professor still has certain privacy rights regarding the conditions of employment and his or her specific personnel details.

To be honest, i’m not sure what would satisfy you apart from a public flogging and a pledge of allegiance to the Republican Party.

76

Your first point - no. Where I have worked there was no “mark on your record”. They either fired you or gave you a warning. It seems rather arbitrary to me especially as I said before, the professor has an entire union with a bunch of lawyers backing her up. What protection does the student have? Well you kind of proved it - nothing.

Thing is with the secrecy you mention, the students and everyone else doesnt really know what a “mark on the record” really means. It could mean as you say the professor better toe the line and not do it again or it could mean they are all laughing about it behind closed doors. It really comes down to the administration.

What punishment would I accept? I believe a formal written or verbal apology in front of the student and the whole class would be in order. Similar to what they made General Patton do back in WW2. The professor would publicly acknowledge they made a mistake, admit their actions were unprofessional and unbecoming of a person with such a title and office, and promise to do better next time.

People have made public apologies before havent they?

77

And what happened with that warning? Was a record kept of it? Was it considered if the infraction recurrred? Then the warning was a “mark on your record”. Was there no record of the warning, or was each incident looked at in isolation, with no consideration of how many warnings were previously given? Then the warning would not constitute a mark on your record but it would also be pointless.

78

Are you kidding me?

What the fuck do you think a warning is? It’s an indication that you have messed up in some way, and that if you do it again, there will be more severe consequences. That’s exactly what the mark on your record is, which is precisely what i explained in my last post. In fact, in explaining it, i actually said, “It’s similar to what some private workplaces call a warning or a note in your file.”

I have now become convinced that this was basically started as a Pit thread, only without the courage to put it in the Pit. Your complete refusal to read what i write, and to respond to actual arguments, makes clear that you’re not interested in a good-faith and reasonable discussion of the issue. I’m done here. You can have your thread to yourself.

79

People truly do not appreciate how little power a professor has over their students. People think they know because they were once a student. But they have no clue that we have more to be concerned about from our students then the other way around.

They have multiple ways to file grievances about their grades, prof actions, etc

We’re bound by FERPA so we can’t divulge anything, but they have no restrictions. They say basically what they want publicly and we can not.

Anonymous student evals for each course are weighed more and more heavily in reappointment and tenure decisions, despite all the research showing what a poor tool and biased they are.

Upper admin wants enrollment and retention, so we get pressure for recording too many low final grades but also have show we’re not inflating grades, because they get grief for that too. Frivolous student complaints, depending on your admins backbone, can be very serious.

80

I would put forth that it has something to do with the considerable history of authority figures abusing that authority. Due to a larger percentage of the population having the ability to record sound and audio at any time than ever before, more of these authority figures are now getting caught abusing that authority.

It doesn’t matter that (probably) only a small minority of these authority figures are abusing that authority. The perception of more and more getting caught is far larger.

I also have a problem with your second argument.

I was once beaten into a coma. At the time, I saw more than half-a-dozen witnesses. When the police were investigating, do you know how many of those witnesses came forward? Zero. No one wanted any trouble. So please tell Kitty Genovese that a good investigation will out the facts. In the mean time, I’ll continue to record any interaction I have with any authority figure.

I’ll also point out that I’m in Canada, where one-part consent for recording is the law. It’s pretty obvious that this kid broke the law as-it-is in California, and breaking the law has consequences.