The presentation highlighted the social media policies of US universities. The object was to catalog, make accessible, and provide a basis for comparison and discussion of policies. The ultimate objective will be to develop a model set of social media policy guidelines that balances the legitimate duty of universities with the human dignity and academic freedom rights of individuals.

1. Larry Catá Backer
AAUP Member with a faculty appointment at
Pennsylvania State University
AAUP Annual Conference
June 11, 2015
Washington, D.C.
DEVELOPING SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES FOR
UNIVERSITIES:
BEST PRACTICES AND PITFALLS

2. The Broad Picture
– On the one hand,
• we have embraced the idea of universities as a place of deep and
sometimes fractious open discourse, where students and faculty
work diligently in the pursuit of knowledge, wherever it may take
them, and for its dissemination through instruction that is meant
to challenge and train
– . On the other hand,
• we have increasingly come, again, to view faculty the way
aristocrats once thought of the tutors for their children-- as staff
that ought to be careful about their place and their role.

3. The Price of Speech on Campus
– Social Media policy a battleground
• Management of faculty speech and conduct is part of a larger
project to control the behaviors of faculty BOTH:
• In the course of employment
• Beyond the scope of employment
• Engagement in the Development of Policies:
– Typologies
– Accessibility
– Formulation

4. Bleeding Kansas
• In September, 2013 the University of Kansas suspended David
W. Guth, a tenured journalism professor, after he responded
to the shootings at the Washington Navy Yard with this
comment on Twitter:
– "#NavyYardShooting The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next
time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God
damn you." Jason Jaschik, Fireable Tweets, Inside Higher Education,
Dec. 19, 2013).
• In response, and in the face of a supposed absence of rules
for dealing with this sort of old fashioned malediction or
curse, the Kansas Regents rushed in with a broad effort to
control the behavior of its academics.
l

5. The Tweeting Professor
On a Sunday, 2 June 2013, Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychology professor
resident at the University of New Mexico and visiting at N.Y.U. University, sent the
following tweet:
– The University of New
Mexico formally cesured him.
NYU allowed him to finish his
Visit.

6. The Salaita Affair
.
Two sets of issues:
--legal contractual
--Social media and speech rights (bound
up in notions of collegiality and fitness
for the job)

7. The Chicago Approach
Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression:
In a word, the University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or
deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some
or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise,
immoral, or wrong-headed. It is for the individual members of the University
community, not for the University as an institution, to make those judgments for
themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but
by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose. Indeed, fostering the
ability of members of the University community to engage in such debate and
deliberation in an effective and responsible manner is an essential part of the
University’s educational mission.
As a corollary to the University’s commitment to protect and promote free expression,
members of the University community must also act in conformity with the principle
of free expression. Although members of the University community are free to criticize
and contest the views expressed on campus, and to criticize and contest speakers who
are invited to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise
interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe. To
this end, the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and
fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when
others attempt to restrict it.

8. The AAUP
• Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications
Download: Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications.pdf
• It "recommends that each institution work with its faculty to develop
policies governing the use of social media.
– Any such policy must recognize that social media can be used to engage in extramural
utterances, which are protected under principles of academic freedom.”
– The report also argues that in electronic communications "faculty members cannot be
held responsible for always indicating that they are speaking as individuals and not in
the name of their institution, especially if doing so will place an undue burden on the
faculty member's ability to express views in electronic media."

9. The Implications
Social Media Policy Efforts Touch on Fundamental Changes
-(1) Redrawing of power relationships from states to institutions as centers
of regulatory power
--(2) Transformation of rule structures from command to management
(assessment and objectives based management);
--(3) Opening a wider scope of discretion exercised by administrators (now
overseers)—enter collegiality; anti-bulling; civility
--(4)Scope of the meaning of “service” widens to the benefit of employer
institutions;
--(5) Production of inversion: speech rights of institutions widen as
individual speech and employee speech is increasingly regulated and
privatized

10. The Way Forward?
--Separating work related form non work related communications;
--detaching the individual from the institution;
--building a wall containing the privatized regulatory authority of institutions to
work related service.
--using university technology, equipment, networks, servers, etc.
--ownership is regulatory power?
--who exercises discretion to judge and enforce?
--limits on exercise of administrative discretion
--limits of the scope of authority to impose discipline beyond faculty centered
mechanisms
--more robust rights to protect against and punish retaliation

11. A Model?
• Policy Goals in a Social Media Policy?
• WHEREAS, In keeping with The Pennsylvania State University’s commitment to the
principles of academic freedom, the University supports the responsible use of
existing and emerging communications technologies, including social media, to
serve the teaching, research, and public service missions of Penn State.
• WHEREAS, the University remains respectful of the individual human dignity of
its faculty, staff and students, and recognizes that its authority to as an employer
cannot justify or extend to efforts to control the lawful expressive conduct of
individuals not made in the course of their employment, narrowly but
reasonable defined.
• WHEREAS, faculty are mindful of their position as members of a learned
profession, whose expressive conduct may touch on their professional as well as
personal roles, and their obligation to respect the interest of the University in its
own reputation.
•
•

12. A Model?
• 1. Social media means any facility for online publication and commentary.
• 2. The guidelines shall suggest non-exclusive ways in which social media technologies may be used to
serve the university’s mission and shall encourage these uses. In doing so, the guidelines shall assure all
employees that improper use of social media shall not be interpreted to include any use of social media
in the following:
• i the content of any academic research and other scholarly activities;
ii the content of any academic instruction;
iii the content of any statements, debate, or expressions made as part of shared governance at a university
whether made by a group or employee; or,
iv in general, any communication via social media that is consistent with First Amendment protections and
that is otherwise permissible under the law.
• 3. The guidelines shall remind employees that their authorship of content on social media may violate
existing law or policy and may be addressed through university disciplinary processes if, but only if, it:
• i is intentionally directed to inciting or producing imminent violence or other breach of the peace and is
likely to incite or produce such action;
ii violates existing employee policies addressing professional misconduct that do not contradict or are
inconsistent with these guidelines;
iii discloses without lawful authority any confidential student information, protected health care
information, personnel records, personal financial information, or confidential research data.
•
•

13. A Model?
• 4. The guidelines also shall advise employees that when using social media to speak as a
citizen they should be mindful of the balance struck by the 1940 Statement of Principles of
the American Association of University Professors:
– College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational
institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but
their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should
remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all
times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should
make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.
• 5. The guidelines shall recognize the rights and responsibilities of all employees, including
faculty and staff, to speak on matters of public concern as private citizens, if they choose to
do so, including matters of public concern involving the university.
• 6. The guidelines shall recognize the rights and responsibilities of the university for the
operation of social media that it hosts, and recognizes that the university may impose
reasonable rules for the use of these university owned or operated sites.
• 6. The guidelines on use of social media shall apply prospectively from its date of adoption by
the University.
•
•

14. Conclusion
--Social media policies bound up with issues of control, administrative discretion
and the extent to which an institution can control the lives of its faculty beyond
the workplace.
--social media policy might
serve as a useful vehicle for
limiting employer rights
over the lives of employees.
--Legal standards will likely
be of little help.