Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't want to do it the wong way, after all.
After 27 years, that joke is still fresh as ever. /s
As my last name is Rapp, I can sympathize...
Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
21–29 of 29 posts
Re: Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're wrong on two counts: one practical, one theoretical. The practical one is that state schools are arms of the state. Given that their governor sits on the Board of Regents, I'm not sure they're effectively distinguishable in the way you suggest. The theoretical one is that universities are not like "every job". The whole point of universities is to encourage bold intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom i…
I always thought that your right to free speech was as a citizen, not as an employee. For example if you work for the President and you badmouth him, he can have you fired. The distinction is that once you don't work for him anymore, you're now free to say whatever you want. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know. If my mental model for how free speech works is wrong I'd love to find out. Especially if you can give me case…
"Free speech" and "the First Amendment" are not synonymous. The First Amendment makes no guarantee of employment, of course. But if you fire people based on speech, you are making the speech of your employees less free. This is what the debate is about. The First Amendment is a red herring in this context.
Re: Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
#23Re: Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
#24Considering that it's the Kansas Board of Regents and not say the Kansas Legislature and Governor I'm not sure their right to free speech is being violated. What I mean is that every job comes with restrictions on speech, you shouldn't badmouth the boss, you shouldn't stir up dissent, you can't give away company secrets or violate an NDA you might have executed. None of those are in violation of the First Amendment s…
I think you're wrong on two counts: one practical, one theoretical. The practical one is that state schools are arms of the state. Given that their governor sits on the Board of Regents, I'm not sure they're effectively distinguishable in the way you suggest. The theoretical one is that universities are not like "every job". The whole point of universities is to encourage bold intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom i…
Ken White has a post titled "Ninth Circuit Clarifies First Amendment Rights of Public University Professors" [0] which goes in to some detail about the various legal issues at the nexus of free speech rights and professorship.
[0] - http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/05/ninth-circuit-clarifies-fi...
Re: Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
#25> The Kansas Board of Regents just adopted a new social media policy, which allows Kansas state universities to fire (tenured and untenured) employees for “improper use” of social media. “Improper use” includes inciting violence (perhaps justifiable though potentially open to contentious interpretations), posting confidential information about students (fine) or posting things that are “contrary to the best interests…
> Consider it this way: your company says engineers are allowed to brainstorm and implement features, unless those features end up causing an "unreasonable" amount of harm to the customers or to the company. Otherwise, just stick to maintaining legacy code and having meetings. What effect do you think that'll have on the engineering culture?
Depends on the field. In software, there's enough competition between companies for talented engineers, so some companies might offer "you're allowed to work on harmful projects" as a hiring perk/bonus, for some definition of "harmful" (for example, not directly profitable projects).
Re: Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're wrong on two counts: one practical, one theoretical. The practical one is that state schools are arms of the state. Given that their governor sits on the Board of Regents, I'm not sure they're effectively distinguishable in the way you suggest. The theoretical one is that universities are not like "every job". The whole point of universities is to encourage bold intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom i…
Ken White has a post titled "Ninth Circuit Clarifies First Amendment Rights of Public University Professors" [0] which goes in to some detail about the various legal issues at the nexus of free speech rights and professorship. [0] - http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/05/ninth-circuit-clarifies-fi...
Thanks for the link.
Re: Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The theoretical one is that universities are not like "every job". The whole point of universities is to encourage bold intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom is at the heart of what universities do. Whether or not they can legally get away with trying to treat professors like serfs seems less important to me. Then maybe universities shouldn't be funded by the state. A CIA operative, military officer, cabinet membe…
That's an idealistic view. The US has seen immense success in the past 100 years or so by funding universities for research and at the same time still providing a "reasonable" amount of academic freedom for professors. It attracted the brightest minds of the world and gave them the resource to study what they wanted to do. And you propose throwing that away for an absolutist principle?
wrong. The federal government has only been broadly funding academic research for the past 50 years or so. While there was scattered early research (such as the Michelson-Morley experiments done at the USNA), and the land-grant acts. Big guided research operations such as NIH and NCI were largely internal, small research operations from the 30s through the 50s. NIH first issued grants in 1967.
Re: Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're wrong on two counts: one practical, one theoretical. The practical one is that state schools are arms of the state. Given that their governor sits on the Board of Regents, I'm not sure they're effectively distinguishable in the way you suggest. The theoretical one is that universities are not like "every job". The whole point of universities is to encourage bold intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom i…
> The theoretical one is that universities are not like "every job". The whole point of universities is to encourage bold intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom is at the heart of what universities do. Whether or not they can legally get away with trying to treat professors like serfs seems less important to me. Then maybe universities shouldn't be funded by the state. A CIA operative, military officer, cabinet membe…
Oh, please. Universities are a fine example of something that the state should fund. Knowledge is a public good. An educated populace is important societal infrastructure, especially in a democracy. Education is such a long-cycle thing that purely private funding of it is deeply problematic.
I grant that people working under the rules of wartime discipline have reasonable speech restrictions. And people whose job is to publicly represent the organization also have some limitations on their public speech. But there's no general reason that employers should be able to control employee speech except when they are directly working.
Re: Kansas Board of Regents restricts free speech for academics
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The theoretical one is that universities are not like "every job". The whole point of universities is to encourage bold intellectual inquiry. Academic freedom is at the heart of what universities do. Whether or not they can legally get away with trying to treat professors like serfs seems less important to me. Then maybe universities shouldn't be funded by the state. A CIA operative, military officer, cabinet membe…
Oh, please. Universities are a fine example of something that the state should fund. Knowledge is a public good. An educated populace is important societal infrastructure, especially in a democracy. Education is such a long-cycle thing that purely private funding of it is deeply problematic. I grant that people working under the rules of wartime discipline have reasonable speech restrictions. And people whose job is…
false dichotomy. Just because there is no profit motive doesn't mean that it can't be private. For example, the chemiosmotic effect is something that was discovered by a private nonprofit scientific effort.
You could also argue that education is such a long-cycle think that state control is deeply problematic. Knowledge is a public good so it shouldn't be sullied by grubby hands of politicians seeking to control the populace and gain more political power for the sake of their narcissism.