Universities across the country have faced criticism and sometimes legal action for violating the first amendment rights of students, faculty and staff. In response, many schools have spoken out publicly defending free speech. Yet when push comes to shove and the Internet outrage mob shows up to call for a professor to be fired, strongly worded commitments to free speech often melt away.
If guarantees are so easily overridden, that signals larger problems with fate of American higher education.
A tenured history professor at Rutgers University was found guilty of violating the university’s policy for two sarcastic Facebook posts about gentrification. Later, he was also denied an appeal. After the university received complaints, Rutgers investigated and found the professor’s remarks on social media were a “belligerent barb against whites” and a violation of university policy. Now the Foundation for Individual Right in Education, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that defends the rights of faculty, staff and students, has demanded that the university reverse its finding.
Livingston, who is white and lives in Harlem, posted after visiting a restaurant “OK, officially, I now hate white people. I am a white people, for God’s sake, but can we keep them–us–us out of my neighborhood?” Adding that the restaurant was “overrun with little Caucasian assholes” and, “I hereby resign from my race.”
The jokes were arguably in poor taste, but the university’s response to complaints shows just how cowardly universities have become because of rumblings on the Internet. Livingston’s appeal was denied and he faces disciplinary action “up to and including discharge.” That’s a bit extreme for a few bad jokes on Facebook, even if you find them Facebook posts distasteful.
Rutgers’s argument that a professor can violate policy for his speech in his capacity as a private citizen is also contrary to U.S. jurisprudence. The U.S. Supreme Court has found that just because you are a professor employed by a public university, you do not give up your rights as a private citizen to comment on matters of public importance. Specifically, the court held, “The First Amendment limits the ability of a public employe…to restrict, incidentally or intentionally, the liberties employees enjoy in their capacities as private citizens.”
Rutgers’ own policy on Academic Freedom echoes this principle and reads, “faculty members, as private citizens, enjoy the same freedoms of speech and expression as any private citizen and shall be free from institutional discipline in the exercise of these rights.”
Even the president of Rutgers, Robert Barchi, has defended the importance of faculty speech saying, “members of our community…are free to express their viewpoints in public forums as private citizens, including viewpoints that the university itself or I personally may not share.”
But, in the age of Internet outrage, saving face when confronted with online complaints requires perhaps taking the heat of a lawsuit and certainly violating existing policy. After all, the university would like the outrage to stop with the professor and not extend to the institution.
As FIRE Director of Litigation Marieke Tuthill Beck-Coon explained, “To its shame, Rutgers has chosen to ‘feed the trolls’ by sacrificing the First Amendment rights of a faculty member to an outrage mob.”
While this specific case is limited to Rutgers, the power of outrage to change polices, fire professors and dictate other aspects of higher education is on the rise.
In short, if universities continue to bend to the demand of Internet mobs, those mobs gain tremendous power over who can teach, what can be taught and who deserves to be a student.
That would be a loss for American colleges and universities that are well regarded in large part because of their independence and the free thinking that flourishes on campus. Giving that up when faced with complaints hands control to angry voice on the Internet and is a disservice not only to professors but also to students, staff and the country.
Mob rule of higher education benefits no one.
