A group of college students at San Francisco State University found their classroom transformed into a campaign headquarters recently when their professor asked them to design a political campaign ad, with the option of designing it for his potential mayoral run.
Joe Tuman, professor of Political and Legal Communications in the Communication Studies Department, is considering a run for mayor of Oakland, CA and according to the San Francisco Chronicle, said he would use the ads if they were good. But legally, Professor Tuman could get in legal trouble if he used one of his student’s ads in his political aspirations.
Ann Ravel, chairwoman of the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission remarked that wrapping that ad into his campaign “would be in some ways forcing a contribution to himself.” The Fair Political Practices Commission will be reviewing the matter and the school said that the assignment does not appear to violate their policy.
And the co-author of California’s Political Reform Act of 1974, Bob Stern agreed. “It looks like it’s coercion to help him design a campaign strategy, to help him develop ideas,” he said.
Thank goodness Tuman was joking, or so he told the Chronicle when he later explained that he being sarcastic. “I said it with a smile,” the black Republican candidate said. “Why would I use their product to run a campaign, really? If you’re going to run a campaign, you’re going to ask professionals.”
This wouldn’t be Tuman’s first foray into politics, or into the Oakland mayor’s race for that matter. Tuman placed fourth in the 2010 Oakland mayor’s race.
Perhaps the students will one day be studying the legal and ethical ramifications of their professor’s controversial assignment.
