[Peace-discuss] U of I ethics says employees cannot wear political buttons

[Brian Dolinar]

This is really fucked up. BD

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Karen Medina <kmedina at illinois.edu> wrote:

> [Evidently, the U of I ethics office says U of I employees cannot not wear
> political
> buttons on campus or feature bumper stickers on cars parked in campus lots.
> From http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/09/24/buttons -kem]
>
> Sporting an Obama or McCain button? Driving a car with one of the
> campaigns'
> bumper stickers? You might need to be careful on University of Illinois
> campuses.
>
> The university system's ethics office sent a notice to all employees,
> including
> faculty members, telling them that they could not wear political buttons on
> campus or feature bumper stickers on cars parked in campus lots unless the
> messages on those buttons and stickers were strictly nonpartisan. In
> addition,
> professors were told that they could not attend political rallies on
> campuses if
> those rallies express support for a candidate or political party.
>
> Faculty leaders were stunned by the directives. Some wrote to the ethics
> office
> to ask if the message was intended to apply to professors; they were told
> that it
> was. At Illinois campuses, as elsewhere, many professors do demonstrate
> their
> political convictions on buttons, bumper stickers and the like.
>
> Cary Nelson, a professor at the Urbana-Champaign campus and national
> president of the American Association of University Professors, said that
> he
> believes he is now violating campus policy when he drives to work because
> he
> has a bumper sticker that proclaims: "MY SAMOYED IS A DEMOCRAT."
>
> Mike Lillich, a spokesman for the university system, said that President
> Joseph
> White was asked about the ethics memo this week and that he understands why
> faculty members are concerned. "The campus traditions of free speech are
> very
> different from the DMV," said Lillich.
>
> White told professors that he thinks "this is resolvable," and that they
> should
> use "common sense." But for now, Lillich said of the policy sent to all
> employees, "officially, it does apply."
>
> Nelson and other professors are circulating a draft statement outlining
> their
> objections to the ethics rules. "Although these rules are not at present
> being
> enforced, the AAUP deplores their chilling effect on speech, their
> interference
> with the educational process, and their implicit castigation of normal
> practice
> during political campaigns," the draft says.
>
> It adds: "The Ethics Office has failed to recognize and accurately define
> both the
> special context of a university and the role of its faculty members. Campus
> education requires that faculty and students have comparable freedom of
> expression on political subjects. This applies not only to obvious contexts
> like
> courses on politics and public policy in a variety of departments but also
> to the
> less formal settings in which faculty and students interact.... As the
> rules stand,
> students can exercise their constitutional rights and attend rallies and
> wear
> buttons advocating candidates, but faculty cannot.... [S]tudents might
> attend
> campus rallies and later analyze them in a classroom. Are faculty members
> to
> have no experience of the rallies themselves? Finally, it is inappropriate
> to
> suggest that faculty members function as employees whenever they are on
> campus. Faculty often move back and forth between employee responsibilities
> and personal acts within the same time frame."
>
> Debate over the appropriate limits for political activity on campus is
> nothing
> new, of course. Most controversies involve actions that could be viewed as
> aligning an institution with a candidate. For instance, this week, the
> University of
> Massachusetts at Amherst called off a chaplain's efforts to recruit
> students to
> work for the Obama campaign and to get credit for the experience. But while
> such disputes come up every election year, they tend not to involve the
> bumper
> stickers on professors' cars or the buttons on their lapels.
>
> The American Council on Education publishes guidance each election season
> on
> the latest legal standards about political activity and higher education.
> For
> instance, the council recommends that colleges not engage in activities
> such as
> endorsing candidates, placing signs on behalf of candidates on university
> property, or reimbursing university employees for contributions to specific
> candidates. Such actions could imply an endorsement by the institution, the
> guidance notes. With regard to activity by individual faculty members and
> administrators, the council said that it was important to avoid actions
> that
> "would be perceived as support or endorsement by the institution."
>
> Ada Meloy, general counsel at the American Council on Education, said that
> the
> guidelines published by the ACE focus on Internal Revenue Service
> requirements
> for tax-exempt organizations. While she saw nothing there that would limit
> a
> professor's right to wear a button or attend a rally, she said that
> Illinois statutes
> may impose more limits.
>
> The norm for regulation of faculty members is to bar the use of
> institutional or
> public funds or facilities on behalf of candidates, she said. One
> possibility, she
> said, may be that Illinois is especially sensitive to these issues because
> Obama is
> one of its senators.
>
> Lillich, the system spokesman, said he knew of no controversies over
> inappropriate political activity that might have prompted the rules.
>
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>


-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
303 W. Locust St.
Urbana, IL 61801
briandolinar at gmail.com
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