University violates its pledge of confidentiality over a homophobic remark. Thoughts?

[FinnAgain]

@brickbacon

Ok, clearly you did not read the link. If you had actually bothered to learn the specifics, you would see that your comments are ridiculous on their face.

I love the “you didn’t read blah blah blah” gambit. You might want to be a little bit less quick on the draw, though.
You have actually posited that it is ridiculous to claim that saying a teacher is “terrible with [his job]” was relevant to an appraisal of that teacher’s “ability to teach”.

As for his comments about the teacher’s “issues with homosexuality”, we have no idea what the heck that was based on. Ideally, the student should have had no clue whether his teacher was gay, straight, bi, or liked fucking barnyard animals. The teacher may have inappropriately included his sexuality in the course. And while the student was a giant flaming bastard, his spewings might have had a kernel of validity inside them. We don’t know, is kinda the point. And even if it didn’t have anything to do with his teaching style, so what? Should a student, who is promised anonymity, and fills out an evaluation saying “I hated your class” also be liable for outing and reprisals via grading?

More to the point, pretending that an evaluation can become non-anonymous if it doesn’t satisfy the purpose of the evaluation is weird. Students were guaranteed anonymity, not anonymity as long as they provided cogent, useful feedback.

@brickbacon

The GOAL of this exercise is to get meaningful feedback on a professor’s teaching skills. That is the only point of the exercise and the only grounds under which anonymity should be protected.

Sure, you’d have a point if you could show anywhere that the anonymity policy was clearly spelled out as only applying to meaningful feedback. Otherwise, you’re just inventing an anonymity policy and attempting to swap it for the actual one.

@brickbacon

It could be argued that this student was breaking the law by doing this, why do you think the university needs to honor its side of the deal when the student broke it to begin with?

It could also be argued that the student was 12 foot tall purple chimpanzee. That doesn’t make it a very good argument, either. The law you cited was for New Jersey. This happened in Georgia. If you’re going to argue that this was illegal, or might have been illegal, you could at least provide the relevant law for the correct state.

Nor is it at all clear that any argument that the student was “breaking the law” would be compelling on legal or philosophical grounds. There are First Amendment issues involved with overly broad harassment laws. Georgia itself has a history of legal wrangling over this issue:

A 1972 Georgia law that had outlawed ‘‘opprobrious words or abusive language tending to cause a breach of the peace’’ was overturned for being overly broad.

Now, I’m not going to do your leg work and hunt down Georgia’s statutes, as I think that any law criminalizing speech of that sort is a bad law. But if you want to make the legal argument, you have to do a heck of a lot better than citing New Jersey law for an incident in Georgia.

And while I’m at it, the definition you provided for harassment, in addition to being absurdly broad (and thus, extremely vulnerable to legal challenge), sure has some interesting phrases, eh? Isn’t it intersting that they define harassment as doing certain things “with an intent to harass?” That’s a mistake most 8th graders know to avoid when defining a word. Sloppy language aside, let’s look at subsection A and see what someone could be punished for if they had an “intent to harass” (whatever that is, exactly), shall we?

“a.Makes, or causes to be made, a communication or communications anonymously or at extremely inconvenient hours, or in offensively coarse language, or any other manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm;”

Anonymous communications? Letters to the editor that aren’t signed and that someone feels show an “intent to harass”, harsh reviews dropped off in a suggestion box, etc… crimes.
Offensively coarse language that doesn’t rise to the level of “fighting words”? Many comedians are guilty if someone feels that they had “an intent to harass” patrons in a comedy club (or viewers of a TV program). And under the clarification for subsection A, Ian McShane is a criminal if anybody in New Jersey has HBO and feels that the intent of the show was to “harass” them.
Causing annoyance? Any whiny kid in a supermarket, begging for sugared cereal and not shutting up when his parents say enough is enough… is a criminal. Likewise, any screaming baby is a criminal. After all, a baby that wants its diaper changed, or to be fed, or burped, is deliberately “harassing” its parents by annoying them into leaping to action.
Alarm? Most harmless April Fools jokes fall under this category if they cause someone alarm and someone feels that the joker “had an intent to harass”.

Hell, anybody who annoys you on purpose in NJ is a criminal, under that excellent law. Gilbert Gottfried can run, but he can’t hide.
Fuck, anybody who doesn’t even actually annoy you, but does something “likely to cause annoyance” is a criminal if you think they “had an intent to harass”. Do you really want to champion that?

Not to mention, of course, that if you were to post, well, almost anything on this very message board and someone in New Jersey read it… you’d be a criminal. Let’s not even think about the Pit. Should the Dope revoke your anonymity and help someone take you to task? I notice that your profile is mighty skimpy on personal information. Since you’ve most likely already violated the NJ law, would you care to volunteer all that personal information, here, now?

Or should the SDMB “protect” “criminals”?
And hell, the function of this message board is to fight ignorance. Obviously, pointing out NJ’s law in a GA case isn’t fighting ignorance. So since you didn’t make a “meaningful” post, the SDMB can revoke your anonymity. Yes?

@brickbacon

The student’s conduct falls under a few of those definitions. Why should the University protect a criminal?

Well, one reason might be because the New Jersey law is a bad law. By its very nature, any anonymous evaluation that someone gets into their head had an “intention to harass”, at all, is harassment. The circular definition is icing on the cake, but simply filling out a series of negative evaluations can be a crime. Ayieee.

Nor would the University be “protecting” a “criminal” if they simply didn’t hire a handwriting analyst and hunt him down. There is a huge ol’ excluded middle between protecting a criminal and calling out the hounds.

Nor is it a university’s job to enforce the laws.
Should universities have expelled students who violated miscegenation laws? How about the Alien And Sedition Acts? Should university libraries automatically comply with Patriot Act fishing expeditions that want to know what everybody on campus is reading? Should universities have expelled draft dodgers? How about people who violate Blue Laws? And as long as we’re talking about Georgia, can a university expel a woman if she’s got a vibrator?

@brickbacon

Again, free speech does not mean free speech with no consequences. I may be allowed to walk up to the president and threaten him, but I cannot expect that there won’t be repercussions for doing so.

There are distinctions between screaming “fire” in a crowded theater, making a direct threat to someone, and being rude. Saying "George Bush, I hate you, go choke on a dick (or a pretzel) " is a totally different matter from making death threats against him.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Algher

[Background: I have taught both undergrad and grad courses as a lecturer, and am close friends with dozens of faculty members]

1. Student evals should remain private, unless there is a statement that is strong enough to warrant police protection. The result of this exercise will be to get a lot of students to stop evaluating for fear of being hunted down. The University has done damage to it operations, IMHO.

2. At the university where I have taught, we don’t ever get the raw evals. We have a person on staff who types the evals for us, to prevent any sort of a handwriting witch hunt. In truth - the system has gone 100% electronic now (I was describing a few years ago), so that you can not check handwriting. Since it is logged, there is a way for a University admin to find a name, but I would hope that would never be done execpt in the case of a death threat (not a wish of death, an actual death threat). It should only be done with a warrant from a judge.

3. Students DO need to be taught HOW to evaluate. 18 year olds are often incompetent. The written comments are typically full of comments on dress code, how hard the tests are, how I was “mean” for expecting them to actually do the reading (and for not providing exam study guides), etc. They only compare me to other faculty, and I lose in comparison to the easy profs and win in comparison to the profs with poor speaking skills.

4. Students are NOT customers. They are NOT employees. They ARE students. This is a different world, and most analogies fail.

5. Students do NOT pay our salaries at a research university. Our budget comes from a variety of sources, and the percentage that comes from the actual student’s pocket is miniscule compared to taxpayer dollars, research grants, & endowments. Add in the few students who pay themselves vs. their parents and you get the gleam in my eye when one of the little darlings snarls at me that “I pay your salary.”

6. Student evals are typically less than 5% of the decision making process in tenure at a research university. Simply put, as long as you don’t suck the committee does not care.

7. I have my TAs read the written comments, and they pass on the quality constructive comments. This is less that 20% of written comments. The rest is ignored. Most undergrads have no clue how to evaluate. Most of them do not know if what they were taught was correct. They just get pissed off when I make them actually work (my variation giving them fear is making them actually do the reading and write papers - not just a bunch of Scantron exams).

This is basically everything I wanted to say with much less vitriol and hyperbole. Thank you.

[FinnAgain]

@Diogenes the Cynic

I thank FinnAgain for my correction. I should have googled the word like he did. Being wrong about a word meaning almost never happens to me. I’m stunned.

Well, thanks for your retraction. But simply for the record, I didn’t google anything. I know what the word means.
I simply linked to an online dictionary to provide you with a definition.

[Algher]

@Diogenes the Cynic

This is basically everything I wanted to say with much less vitriol and hyperbole. Thank you.

It was easier to write this than to defend what you had posted (my first inclination)! What you wrote is what I have been rumored to mutter at times over a few drinks at the local pub.

[Liberal]

@Diogenes the Cynic

You know what it means. I’m not going to play this game.

I don’t know what it means. If you’re going to toss a ball out there, you should be prepared to play the game.

[Weirddave]

@Diogenes the Cynic

I’m not critiquing any profs. As I said upthread, I declined to ever critique an instructor. I always turned in a blank form.

So you found a way to accurately convey what was going on in your mind then? ;)

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Liberal

I don’t know what it means.

Well, let me help you out. “Southern boy” is not hate speech.

[tnetennba]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Incidentally and appropo of nothing, I see no reason that student evals should ever be taken. I can’t see any reason why the opinions of the students should be of any use or value whatsoever to how a university evaluates instructors.

They are of tremendous value to the instructors themselves, or at least the ones who want feedback that will make them better teachers.

[tnetennba]

In regards to the OP, I would agree that it was a breach of honor by the University to ignore anonymity of the evaluations. Since this is big news now, it compromises the integrity of future student evaluations.

I’ve been working in higher education for fifteen years and currently work in faculty development. Dio is grossly mistaken about the purpose and impact of student evaluations, and his impressions of students are ridiculously exaggerated.

[Contrapuntal]

@kaylasdad99

Good catch. Although, now that you mention it, I think FinnAgain might have noticed it.

You know, I think you’re right.

[Little_Nemo]

I’m curious on one point. Was there an actual pledge of confidentiality made? The original question only said “Our university requires us students to write anonymous evaluations of our professors.” There’s a difference between saying “you can submit an unsigned letter” and “you have our promise that your identity will remain secret”.

This board, for example, allows me to conceal my identity by using the username “Little Nemo” instead of my real name. But I don’t think they’ve ever promised that they won’t reveal my real name if some circumstances arise.

[mhendo]

Late to this thread, but i’m having my say anyway.

I think the university fucked up big time. My wife, who’s also in academia, agrees. These evaluations are meant to be anonymous, and the instructor and the university should have done nothing unless the comments by the student demonstrated an actual threat to someone’s safety. The comments were juvenile and pathetic and hateful, and the guy who wrote them is a tool of the first order, but that should have been the end of it.

As for evaluations themselves, i agree with pretty much everything Algher said about them.

@Algher

[Background: I have taught both undergrad and grad courses as a lecturer, and am close friends with dozens of faculty members]

1. Student evals should remain private, unless there is a statement that is strong enough to warrant police protection. The result of this exercise will be to get a lot of students to stop evaluating for fear of being hunted down. The University has done damage to it operations, IMHO.

Absolutely agree.

@Algher

2. At the university where I have taught, we don’t ever get the raw evals. We have a person on staff who types the evals for us, to prevent any sort of a handwriting witch hunt. In truth - the system has gone 100% electronic now (I was describing a few years ago), so that you can not check handwriting. Since it is logged, there is a way for a University admin to find a name, but I would hope that would never be done execpt in the case of a death threat (not a wish of death, an actual death threat). It should only be done with a warrant from a judge.

At both places where i’ve taught recently, we do end up seeing the raw evaluations, but not until the beginning of the following semester, well after all the class grades have been submitted.

At one of the places, there is even a place for the students to sign their evaluations if they want to (it’s completely optional). I was absolutely amazed that some students actually do this, and it’s not only the students who give compliments. Some students who offer thoughtful criticism seem happy to sign their names.

@Algher

3. Students DO need to be taught HOW to evaluate. 18 year olds are often incompetent. The written comments are typically full of comments on dress code, how hard the tests are, how I was “mean” for expecting them to actually do the reading (and for not providing exam study guides), etc. They only compare me to other faculty, and I lose in comparison to the easy profs and win in comparison to the profs with poor speaking skills.

I make a point, before handing out the evaluations, of earnestly asking the students to be as honest as possible with me. I tell them that i’m very happy to read critical evaluations, because they help me improve the course, but that if they want their criticisms to be taken seriously then they need to make them intelligently. I tell them that simply writing “This course was shit” does nobody any good, and neither does simply writing “This course was awesome.” I’m interested in hearing what they liked, what they didn’t, and why.

I also tell them to be honest with themselves. For example, i’ll say “If you tried to cram your weekly reading into the last half-hour before class every week, then you shouldn’t complain that the reading was too long or too hard. I told you at the beginning of the semester that you would need at least an hour a week, and sometimes two, to complete the reading. If, on the other hand, you made a genuine attempt to do the reading properly, and still felt that it was too hard or too long, then let me know.”

I find that being upfront with the students about the evaluations generally leads to more useful evaluations. I’m lucky, though, in that my classes have all been relatively small (<25 students) seminar classes where i’ve had a chance to know all the students. I’m sure evaluations might be more problematic for teachers who have massive lecture classes.

@Algher

4. Students are NOT customers. They are NOT employees. They ARE students. This is a different world, and most analogies fail.

5. Students do NOT pay our salaries at a research university. Our budget comes from a variety of sources, and the percentage that comes from the actual student’s pocket is miniscule compared to taxpayer dollars, research grants, & endowments. Add in the few students who pay themselves vs. their parents and you get the gleam in my eye when one of the little darlings snarls at me that “I pay your salary.”

I agree, although i’d go even further.

Even if the students paid every cent of my salary indirectly through their tuition, the fact is that the university, as an institution, needs to maintain a level of academic and professional integrity that is at odds with the whole “customer is always right” bullshit that some people use when talking about academia. If i make my course easier, and lower the standards, because of some whining students, i not only cheat them out of a decent education, but i effectively lower the value of the institution and compromise its integrity as a seat of learning.

I certainly agree that students—whether they pay or not—have a right to expect standards of professionalism and competence from their teachers, and if they don’t get it, then they have a right to complain. But too many students seem to think that this means they get to dictate class content and difficulty levels. Not gonna happen.

@Algher

6. Student evals are typically less than 5% of the decision making process in tenure at a research university. Simply put, as long as you don’t suck the committee does not care.

Some schools are paying increasing attention to evaluations, and make that clear to young faculty. In some cases, this really does seem to devolve into a case of “Make the students happy or miss out on tenure.” Sure, that’s unlikely to happen at a top-flight research school, but some folks seem to forget that the vast majority of America’s four-year colleges and universities are not top-flight research schools. And in places where this attitude about keeping them happy at all costs does prevail, its inevitable result will be a dumbing down of courses.

@Algher

7. I have my TAs read the written comments, and they pass on the quality constructive comments. This is less that 20% of written comments. The rest is ignored. Most undergrads have no clue how to evaluate. Most of them do not know if what they were taught was correct. They just get pissed off when I make them actually work (my variation giving them fear is making them actually do the reading and write papers - not just a bunch of Scantron exams).

This, of course, is the real problem with evaluations. While some students are always decent enough to fill them out seriously and honestly, for other students it becomes little more than an exercise in payback against a teacher who actually makes them—shock! horror!—do some work, and who gives them the grade they deserve when they do crappy work.

@Little Nemo

I’m curious on one point. Was there an actual pledge of confidentiality made? The original question only said “Our university requires us students to write anonymous evaluations of our professors.” There’s a difference between saying “you can submit an unsigned letter” and “you have our promise that your identity will remain secret”.

I understand why you ask that question, but for me, it’s really irrelevant. Whether it’s officially written somewhere or not, it seems clear that students fill out these evaluations on the understanding that they will remain anonymous. For me, that’s a good enough reason for not trying to identify the student.

If the university wanted to do what it did, it should have made clear—in an explicitly-worded statement—that student evaluations which violated certain conditions would be liable to investigation, and their authors liable to exposure and disciplinary action. As other have suggested, though, a policy like this would make evaluations even less effective, possibly gutting their usefulness altogether. I think the school made a big mistake.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Little Nemo

This board, for example, allows me to conceal my identity by using the username “Little Nemo” instead of my real name. But I don’t think they’ve ever promised that they won’t reveal my real name if some circumstances arise.

They better not rat me out. I know people.

Anyhoo, the only person affected in this sorry mess should’ve been the teacher, in that he’s no longer allowed to state or imply evaluations are anonymous. Further, all future evaluations should pass first through a third party who will type them out.

[Magiver]

@brickbacon

Free speech does not mean speech without consequences. I think it’s unreasonable to expect you can threaten people, then try to hide behind free speech.

Nobody was threatened.

@brickbacon

Ok, clearly you did not read the link. If you had actually bothered to learn the specifics, you would see that your comments are ridiculous on their face. Mr. Joe Disponzio, the professor in question received the following comments on two different occasions (both from the same student):

Clearly I posted 1 minute after the links were made and hadn’t seen them yet so lose the attitude.

@brickbacon

You are ASSUMING that the student’s comment had a basis in fact or objectivity. There are bad teachers and good teachers, but neither group deserves to be harassed and threatened. .

I’m not assuming anything. You responded to a factual example I gave of why student’s opinions can be valid and useful. I had a class with a really bad teacher. A number of us went to the Dean, we spelled out the problem, and he fired him.

If you read past my first post you would have realized that I did read what the student wrote and commented on it in post 13. The fact that the kid’s a tool doesn’t change my position. If you have a problem with my example then argue against the point I made.

[furt]

$02 from another college instructor:

I have been personally attacked in a number student evaluations, including by one student who called me a “stupid fag.” (One semester, one class got the impression I was gay and I never bothered to correct them.) Unless someone was making credible, specific threats of violence, I’d be horrified if any school wanted to tell me who wrote what.

Frankly, I think the teacher in this case need to stick up for her student.

[Triskadecamus]

I think the university should be required to amend all promises of confidentiality in the future. Perhaps simply adding “unless you really piss someone off” to the end.

Tris

[brazil84]

@Triskadecamus

Perhaps simply adding “unless you really piss someone off” to the end.

Tris

“unless you really piss someone off” is an unwritten exception to many policies in life.

[1010011010]

@furt

Frankly, I think the teacher in this case need to stick up for her student.

The teacher is the one who compared the anonymous evals to his old exams to identify the student.

[Liberal]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Well, let me help you out. “Southern boy” is not hate speech.

Ah, just as I thought. It’s whatever you say it is.

[brickbacon]

@FinnAgain

I love the “you didn’t read blah blah blah” gambit. You might want to be a little bit less quick on the draw, though.

That wasn’t directed at you, and the person it was directed toward had made assumptions about basic facts of the case.

@FinnAgain

You have actually posited that it is ridiculous to claim that saying a teacher is “terrible with [his job]” was relevant to an appraisal of that teacher’s “ability to teach”.

Nice try. the full quote is as follows:

“Joe Disponzio is a complete asshole. I hope he chokes on a dick, gets AIDS and dies. To hell with all gay teachers who are terrible with their jobs and try to fail students!”

You are being incredible disingenuous when you say that I stated that the bolded part was a ridiculous thing to say, or that the comment as a whole has any redemptive value or utility to anyone. The student wasn’t really just saying Disponzio was terrible at his job, he was damning to hell GAY TEACHERS who are terrible with their jobs. Sure you can pick his offensive statement apart to isolate something that, in another context, could be valid, but that is being far too considerate to someone who has shown none in return.

@FinnAgain

As for his comments about the teacher’s “issues with homosexuality”, we have no idea what the heck that was based on. Ideally, the student should have had no clue whether his teacher was gay, straight, bi, or liked fucking barnyard animals. The teacher may have inappropriately included his sexuality in the course. And while the student was a giant flaming bastard, his spewings might have had a kernel of validity inside them. We don’t know, is kinda the point.

Are you serious? We have NO proof that the teacher in question was doing any of that. To shift the blame onto the victim is incredibly unfair. Do you think that your scenario is more likely than the student making unfair accusations.

@FinnAgain

And even if it didn’t have anything to do with his teaching style, so what? Should a student, who is promised anonymity, and fills out an evaluation saying “I hated your class” also be liable for outing and reprisals via grading?

No, because “I hated your class”, while not very useful, does not break any of the school’s conduct rules, or the law. In addition, in some cases, it could be useful.

@FinnAgain

More to the point, pretending that an evaluation can become non-anonymous if it doesn’t satisfy the purpose of the evaluation is weird. Students were guaranteed anonymity, not anonymity as long as they provided cogent, useful feedback.

Nonsense. The feedback doesn’t have to be “useful” per se, but it shouldn’t go as far to be criminal or to go against the school’s rules. Do you really think the school should give blanket immunity for anything? This clearly broke the school rules. If a student writes that he/she and others cheat on every test, should they expect to remain anonymous? What if they admit a crime?

@FinnAgain

Sure, you’d have a point if you could show anywhere that the anonymity policy was clearly spelled out as only applying to meaningful feedback. Otherwise, you’re just inventing an anonymity policy and attempting to swap it for the actual one.

No, we both are making assumptions here. I just think mine are far more reasonable. Again, do you think a person would have a reasonable expectation that this anonymity or privacy would extend to behaviors that are explicitly against schools rules, and/or criminal or civil statutes?

@FinnAgain

Nor is it at all clear that any argument that the student was “breaking the law” would be compelling on legal or philosophical grounds. There are First Amendment issues involved with overly broad harassment laws. Georgia itself has a history of legal wrangling over this issue:

Now, I’m not going to do your leg work and hunt down Georgia’s statutes, as I think that any law criminalizing speech of that sort is a bad law. But if you want to make the legal argument, you have to do a heck of a lot better than citing New Jersey law for an incident in Georgia.

Fair enough. My google skills aren’t that great, but I can’t find a Georgia statute that would apply to this case, so I willing to concede that the students conduct may not have been against the law. However, I think it is clear that he broke the school rules.

@Magiver

Nobody was threatened.

There were no explicit threats, but I think the teacher certainly felt threatened and harassed.

@Magiver

Clearly I posted 1 minute after the links were made and hadn’t seen them yet so lose the attitude.

Fair enough. Although you should avoid speculating if you don’t know the bare facts of the case. And yes you did speculate in your first post, and if you would like me to outline how, just let me know.