[lit-ideas] Re: Too Much Information?
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:57:36 -0700
Eric Yost wrote
...I found the guy's MySpace page. First thing you read there is:
>>Looking for guys into vacuum pumping. LOVE to pump and get as big as
possible. If you pump, contact me.<<
So he's gay ... big deal. So he has a rather childish and mostly
harmless fetish ... big deal. But making this kind of information
easily available to students strikes me as gross and annoying.
What to do? I told my friend's son about it. He was disgusted, and I had
to reassure him that the only thing that mattered was the quality of the
guy's teaching.
I'm not in academia, so have no idea if this kind of blunt
self-disclosure is to be expected. What do you guys think? Should I be
outraged? Is the professor disclosing his desires a violation of ethics?
(I'm describing a link outside of the college Web site.)
Gross and annoying it may be, but the guy has every right (i.e., it's
within the law for him) to post his personal information on MyFace, or
SpaceBook, or wherever. (In the days of United States vs. One Book...,
he'd probably have got thirty years.) If he'd posted his vita on his
school's website that might be another matter, but many schools
encourage faculty to to create personal websites that can be linked to
the short bios in departmental listings. Often such pages have links to
online versions of articles and papers and to works in progress, as well
as pictures of him or her canoeing in the Boundary waters. Fairly tame.
An institution could close such a page or ask that material on it be
deleted or changed, but this can lead to all sorts of nasty intramural
warfare, and, at state schools, warnings from the legislature.
No one though can claim that his or her academic freedom is being
violated when the issue is what was said or done outside of class, that
is, outside any conceivable educational purpose. Many people seem to
think that just anything a faculty person says, anytime, anywhere, is
somehow 'protected' under the umbrella of 'academic freedom.' It isn't.
As for the music prof's boasts being unethical, there's no direct link
between 'this disgusts me,' and 'this is unethical.' Avert your eyes.
His institution can't censure him because he's written something
offensive in a public, non-institutional setting.
My SpaceBook page was written for the Old Lady from Peoria.
Robert Paul,
Reed College
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