{"id":15580,"date":"2013-12-20T09:55:27","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T14:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=15580"},"modified":"2013-12-20T09:55:27","modified_gmt":"2013-12-20T14:55:27","slug":"the-kansas-regents-casually-end-academic-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2013\/12\/20\/the-kansas-regents-casually-end-academic-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kansas Regents (Casually) End Academic Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Economic Perspectives<\/em> has the article The Kansas Regents (Casually) End Academic Freedom<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The chief executive officer of a state university has the authority to suspend, dismiss or terminate from employment any faculty or staff member who makes improper use of social media. \u201cSocial media\u201d means any facility for online publication and commentary, including but not limited to blogs, wikis, and social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. \u201cImproper use of social media\u201d means making a communication through social media that:
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\nKansas is trashing the only remaining jewel in the state, its superb university system.\u00a0 The ideological purge that removed virtually all of the \u201cmoderate\u201d Republican conservatives from the Kansas legislature has now set its assault rifle sights on the universities.\u00a0 Their view of the glorious \u201charmony\u201d made possible only through ideological purity perverts a \u201cright\u201d of free speech or \u201cacademic freedom\u201d into an act of disloyalty.\u00a0 The new \u201cefficiency\u201d regime founded on \u201ctruth\u201d as it was revealed to the Koch brothers and the NRA will gradually sweep discordant views from Kansas\u2019 universities.\u00a0 The purge leaders will eventually celebrate the date, December 18, 2013, on which the Kansas university system was officially Koched and NRAed<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, maybe people can understand why I am so dead set against MIT’s accepting money to build a building and name it after David Koch.<\/p>\n

The follow on article to the one above is headlined The Kansas Regents\u2019 (Unintentional) Honesty about Academic Freedom<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In thinking about the rule I realized that I had failed to make in blunt terms five points about how radical it rule it was.\u00a0 I circulated these five points about an hour ago to a number of my contacts.<\/p>\n

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  1. The Regents\u2019 rule allows the CEO to terminate tenured faculty upon their arrest for a felony.\u00a0 There is no requirement for a conviction and no provision for reinstatement if not convicted.<\/li>\n
  2. Truth is no defense.\u00a0 The comment that tenured faculty makes can be accurate and the faculty member can still be fired by the university\u2019s CEO.<\/li>\n
  3. Lack of ill intent is no defense.\u00a0 The faculty member can make an accurate statement of fact or well-founded statement of opinion for exemplary purposes and can still be fired.<\/li>\n
  4. There are no meaningful \u201cstandards\u201d so the statement by the faculty member could unknowingly subject him\/her to dismissal because the faculty member did not know that the CEO was a global climate change denier (or partisan) and believes that those with the opposite view pose a grave threat.\u00a0 The concepts are so vague and subjective (\u201charmony\u201d and \u201cefficiency\u201d) that a faculty member\u2019s only sure means of safety is to say nothing.<\/li>\n
  5. The rule creates different levels of (not very) protected speech.\u00a0 The same statement by a professor in a traditional physically published journal \u2013 if not posted online (recall that most print publishers also make one\u2019s article available on line) \u2014 enjoys greater protection that any comment published \u201conline.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    You can tell that the Oligarchs really feel threatened and will go to any length they need to suppress dissent. I’d say that they will come after the internet next, if it weren’t for the fact that Congress has already passed laws attacking freedom of speech on the internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    New Economic Perspectives has the article The Kansas Regents (Casually) End Academic Freedom. The chief executive officer of a state university has the authority to suspend, dismiss or terminate from employment any faculty or staff member who makes improper use of social media. \u201cSocial media\u201d means any facility for online publication and commentary, including but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15581,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15580\/revisions\/15581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}