Comments on Quick Takes: Probe in Miss., Safety Bill Altered, Indicted Official Had Prior Conviction, New Grades at Harvard Law, Communication Profs Condemn Illinois, Title IX Settlement, UCLA's New Prime, From Princeton to DeVry, State College Leader Retires

• Politics in IL & FL
• Posted by Joe at Florida State University on September 29, 2008 at 7:35am EDT

• It would seem that Illinois and FSU have much in common in stifling the political conversation in the classroom.
  http://www.fsu.edu/policies/

• Florida State's Policy Is Not Bad
• Posted by John K. Wilson at collegefreedom.org on September 29, 2008 at 8:25am EDT

• Actually, if you read that link to Florida State's policy, it's bad, but much better than the U of Illinois. FSU says allows political bumper stickers are allowed on private vehicles, but not university-owned ones. It says political buttons are "not advised when performing official University functions" but doesn't prohibit them. FSU expressly allows symbolic political expression in offices (although it has a bizarre provision about "provided they do not create a hostile work environment, or otherwise impair or disrupt University operations"). It gives most students freedom, although it wrongly restricts student groups associated with academic programs. It bans political rallies on campus, which is both wrong and unconstitutional. But FSU does a far better job than the U of Illinois' idiotic policy.

• Right Wing Fear Campaign at U of I
• Posted by Diogenes on September 29, 2008 at 8:25am EDT

• So let me get this straight. U of I has suppressed the Free Speech of Employees, but is not enforcing it. They made it a law, but they're not treating this slur against the First Amendment as a law. It's on the books but not being enforced in the classroom (or parking lot). And apparently they refuse to listen to a chorus of protest and the threat of legitimate legal action and get rid of this stupidity. So why does it remain? Obviously to intimidate faculty, to be used as an excuse to punish faculty and employees specially targeted when it is enforced unevenly, and of course, it is a handy means of social control. Perhaps they will arrest faculty and staff that have too LARGE of a political button or have more than one poster or a poster in color rather than black and white. Maybe they have a hidden threshold of political advocacy that gets their campus police on alert to target the offending citizen or perhaps...they are targeting ONE PARTY (Guess which one). It most probably will have a trickle down effect on students as well, assuming that if a professor cannot support a candidate, neither will they (except the College Republicans, who since the days Karl Rove was president, delight in pressing the bounds of decency with such delightful events as Islamofascist Day and Affirmative Action Bake Sales). In other words, uneven and selective enforcement is worse than no enforcement. It sets up an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among those who are doing nothing wrong. Perhaps those helping with student voter registration will quit now. Or those giving rides to the polls will shrink from their commitment.

  Now having experienced campus legal bureaucracies for a few decades, here's what usually happens: the powers that be form a committee that drags on for months and produced a thick volume of rules that nobody understands which makes the problem worse.Then the legal advocates move in and contest the rules as unconstitutional. Then the school and its governance systems,after wasting months of committee time, legal fees, administration effort, and good will, drops the laws and goes back to ...oh...the U.S. Constitution as its guide. That will be sometime before the 2012 elections, when conservative on campus will start the process again.

• Harvard Law School Grade Policy Misguided
• Posted by Jim on September 29, 2008 at 8:55am EDT

• I'm probably the only person to react this way, but I think dropping letter grades for law students is a mistake. The notion that competitively awarded grades harm the "learning environment" strikes me as a weak attempt to justify lowering expectations for students (and thereby lowering academic standards.) Far better, in my opinion, to grade on the curve and give, eg., 15% As, 25% Bs, etc., so that students will know how they meaure up relative to other students. (Of course, if most students receive A-range grades, as seems to be the case for Harvard undergraduates, then the whole concept of grades becomes meaningless.)

• Yeah.
• Posted by Denise on September 29, 2008 at 9:00am EDT

• "the powers that be form a committee that drags on for months and produced a thick volume of rules that nobody understands which makes the problem worse"

  Diogenes, they already did that. It's called the "Ethics Committee." Seriously.

• U of Illinois Rules May Not be Political
• Posted by Keith Johnson on September 29, 2008 at 9:15am EDT

• The bizarre rules on political activity at the University of Illinois are quite possibly a product of anti-intellectualism from the state ethics office. The same became famous last year over an ethics test required of all state employees, to be completed over an internal internet system. Employees, including adjunct faculty, were required to take up to an unstated amount of time to complete the test; otherwise they were defined by the office as cheating.

  My experience with the test was illustrative of the mindless and suspicious bureaucracy involved. I was on the campus computer and found through some glitch that my completed test would not register. Concerned, I went directly to the personnel office and retook the test there, under the watchful eyes of the staff on their public computer. Naturally, I didn't take the time to reread all of the material supposedly new to the test taker before answering the questions anew. I exited with a certificate in hand from the personnel office, guaranteeing my ethics for the following year. Weeks later I (and hundreds of others) were notified that our certificates were being revoked, and unless we reported to our local personnel office immediately, our employment would be suspended. The notification stated that because we had cheated by not spending enough time on the test, additional training in ethics would be required. Of course, the personnel people laughed at the whole thing, and I was not required to do any additional training, only to sign a paper that I understood the implications of all this (and apparently admitting my serious lack of ethics up until then). At other campuses this attitude (we employees were all unethical because we failed to respond exactly as the ethics office expected) brought about refusals to sign the paper and threats of legal action from the faculty union. It was all eventually settled without the ethics office ever admitting any shortcoming in their actions.

  Last year I was asked by some students to become the faculty advisor to the Young Republicans on campus, and I agreed. However, the students found an advisor more supportive of their political values, and I never took that "political appointment." My question would be, how can a state employee be advisor to a political group under the announced rules of the ethics office? Does that imply that the group could not engage in any political activity on campus, or the advisor would have to recluse him/herself from any actions of the group? The ramifications boggle the mind, but apparently not the minds of the state ethics officers.

  After the ethics test disaster I wished for the ethics office to forget the test and devote their attentions to something else. Now I see how wrong I was. Be careful what you wish for!

• Posted by Sara at Another Illinois University on September 29, 2008 at 11:25am EDT

• Keith is right. The Illinois State ethics quiz relies heavily on educating faculty staff and student employees on the evils of campaigning during office hours. There is also discussion of taking bribes from vendors, etc, but the election stuff is prominent.

  The quiz reflects the mis-deeds of a prior state administration in coercing campaign type behaviors from state employees to keep their jobs. That governor is now in prison.

  Apparently someone at U of I over-reacted to the ethics quiz emphases as a very broad interpretation of what is reflected in the ethics quiz.

  Seeing as the ethics quiz Gods got upset about people finishing the quiz too quickly (and threatening them with fines and other sanctions), it isn't surprising that there is some paranoia out there.

  A colleague here was told to take a sign down from his office door for someone running for alderman. The person was a student who was very involved in his department.

  Illinois corruption and our newly refined need for ethical behavior with regard to politics is a bit out of control and certainly interferes with academic freedom. I often teach critical reading and debate and heavily use campaign materials for analysis. I find U of I's policy a bit "Big Brother-ish".

• Ethics Tests - what a joke
• Posted by MicroMan on September 29, 2008 at 12:05pm EDT

• How much money is being wasted on this endeavor, a State Ethics Bureau? Well over a million, I would guess. This system requires state employees to sit through 30 minutes of mindless examples of self-obvious, ethical questions. Has anyone considered how much time, state-wide is also being wasted. Let's face it, ethical people already know what is wrong and unethical ones will find ways around the system to avoid being caught. This system serves to intimidate the innocent while the real crooks are laughing. How naive, how sad, how wasteful.

• MSU
• Posted by dundermifflin on September 29, 2008 at 4:00pm EDT

• "Watson, who is a candidate to lead Mississippi State on a permanent basis, had a statement on the matter released by the university saying that “the presidential search at MSU is being influenced by those who appear intent on discrediting him and the values he represents.”" ...in a statement prepared from the immaculately landscaped patio next to the pool.

  Ah, the enduring values of cronyism and greed.

  He had a statement released??? Sounds like he already IS the president.

• U of I
• Posted by Jerry in LA on September 30, 2008 at 10:20am EDT

• Diogenes, I thought U of I was a liberal leaning institution, in a liberal state. How do campus conservatives have all this power?

  If I am mistaken about UI, please correct me.