Update from the offending deans: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/content/deans-communications
Précis: secrecy is literally the most important thing ever.
Harvard Search of E-mail Stuns Its Faculty Members
31–34 of 34 posts
Re: Harvard Search of E-mail Stuns Its Faculty Members
#32The question, in my mind, isn't about whether or not it was OK for Harvard to search their mail server, but rather why they would need to do it. First of all, does Harvard attempt to punish the person who leaked the controversy to the media? And if nearly half of the 279 students were suspected to be cheating and were going to be asked to withdraw, would they really expect the issue to remain hush-hush?
The issue wasn't people leaking the controversy to the media, it was that A resident dean forwarded private email from the administration giving guidance on how to advise athletics students on how to withdraw gracefully.
I would have hoped that this policy would also have been exempt from this pervasive mania for secrecy. The Harvard community in general is well-served to know: 1) that there is a different policy for athletes than for other students 2) that at least some of the "guilty" students were convinced by trusted Harvard faculty (possibly including coaches?) to take a "plea bargain" rather than inconvenience the Ad Board with making a proper determination of guilt 3) that the resident deans, who are privy to many of the secret actions of the administration, don't trust the administration, and they have good reason not to trust it.
Maybe we should have known these things already? Then what harm has resulted from letting the public in general in on it?
Re: Harvard Search of E-mail Stuns Its Faculty Members
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people are incapable of understanding that some rule out there are wrong and should be questioned. They cannot actually understand how people do this questioning. I guess they sleep easy at night knowing all is right with the world, because those lawyers are on our side.
Skipping over the pathetic passive aggressive tone, this isn't about some repressed part of society, this is simply a employer/employee relationship. There's nothing wrong with an employer doing this to protect the organziation. This is exactly what is happening, it's an investigastion into misconduct, not some big civil liberties case. When you send email using you work account you should not expect that email to ha…
Skipping over the pathetic whinging about tone, this is not simply an employer/employee relationship.
The President and Fellows were charged in 1650 with "the advancement of all good literature, arts, and sciences". That can be boiled down to: veritas. There is nothing to support selfish deans avoiding public scrutiny of their poor decisions.
Re: Harvard Search of E-mail Stuns Its Faculty Members
#34I personally think a better headline would be "Harvard faculty shocked and awed by Real World practices and policies intruding on Ivory Tower" :-) I wonder how many of these faculty are aware that the US Gov't is already reading their email, regardless of the provider, and further how many of them are aware that the problem is mostly-fixable with end-to-end email encryption a-la PGP/GnuPG?