Twins In Legal Fight After Making Disparaging Comments About Professor On Facebook
from the oh-come-on dept
We've been seeing more and more stories like this, and it's pretty disturbing that people still freak out so much over a minor negative comment. Apparently, two twin brothers at the University of Calgary made some disparaging remarks about a professor, setting up a page that read "I no longer fear Hell, I took a course with Aruna Mitra." Because of that, they were disciplined by the school and are now in court fighting the whole thing. This is pretty silly on many different levels. First, these types of comments are very, very common among students. I remember joking around about similar things back in college, way before Facebook existed. Now, just because it's on Facebook, it deserves disciplinary action? Even worse, it looks like the school is blaming the twins for comments made by others on that Facebook page. There are some other problems here: in that the school didn't give the students a chance to appeal or present their side. For a university that's supposed to be encouraging free thought and discourse, it seems pretty ridiculous to punish students for making statements on Facebook, even if immature.
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Filed Under: canada, disparaging comments, offhand comments
Companies: facebook
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will this stop people from thinking/saying bad things about the prof? no of course not, it just means that she can ignore the criticism and pretend everything is a-okay.
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Guess it's true... 'Nothing means anything until it's on FaceBook...'
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Interesting
Way to set an example...
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Re: Interesting
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Re: Interesting
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Free speech on campus?
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Re: Free speech on campus?
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Freedom of Speech
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Re: Freedom of Speech
This isn't a left wing/right wing issue. Both wings spend a lot of time trying to silence speech that they don't like. It's a power trip.
The bottom line here is that college (education in general) should be about freedom of expression and exploration of ideas and things like this clearly show that it doesn't really support that notion.
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Re: Re: Freedom of Speech
With more emphasis being placed on performance and the indication that it will become more relevant rather than less as time goes forward, there is a strong incentive for those on the receiving end of the commentary to push back or try to have it censured.
Be careful what you ask for as it can have unintended consequences with resulting problems attached...
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Freedom of Speech
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Feedom of Speech
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Freedom of Speech
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good start.
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Rate My Professor
Essentially, people take for granted the loss of anonymity they have on the internet - you can publish information readily available to millions of people but at the same time you can easily be connected to what you say. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Also, its one thing for a state/public institution to raise these issues, another for a private institution since public institutions are governed by the laws/regulations in the state they reside in while private instutions are pretty much free to make whatever rules they want.
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Instead of seeking to punish these students they should have been appologizing for a bad experience, just like a restaurant would (or should) do if they found out there was a Facebook site saying that a particular waiter was bad. A restaurant wouldn't blame the patron for creating the page would they? If they did, much like this university is finding out, the backlash and negative press will negatively impact their "business."
For some reason universities seem to think students have to put up with ill treatment and won't start attending other universities.
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Some commenters should have failed out of college...
To wit:
1 - The doctrine of Freedom of Speech usually refers to governmental censuring of speech critical of its policies. It does not protect against such things as yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater when there is in fact no fire; that might provoke a charge of inciting a riot or creating a threat to public safety, which are both crimes. It does not protect people who lie publicly about enemies they don't like; defaming another person can get you sued for libel or slander. It also does not protect you in any instance of voluntary association (such as college or work); both places often can fire you without just cause unless you can prove it was some sort of retaliation...and even then, good luck!
2 - The University of Calgary has an honor code, which the twins were supposed to be aware of and willing to follow upon acceptance of their admission. A telling quote from the linked article:
"The comments on the website, including suggestions that the professor 'got lazy and gave everybody a 65,' were unsubstantiated and against the student code of conduct, according to university lawyer Kevin Barr."
The twins broke the code and were thus disciplined just like any other person who breaks a law. Should they have had a chance to rebut the charges? Depends on UoC's internal policies. Quite frankly, if the evidence was as clear as it appears to be, a fake trial was unnecessary.
3 - The whole "left-wing" agenda conspiracy theory simply demonstrates a general ignorance of the real world. Laws tend to be beyond political agendas, and anyone who thinks that following the rules is either left-wing or right-wing really has a limited grasp of how society works.
4 - Specifically to Nastybutler77, students ARE NOT CUSTOMERS. Going to college IS NOT the same as going to McDonald's. You're obviously not a teacher of any sort (thank goodness) or else you would know that effective teaching falters for almost everyone who caters to accommodating ignorance without deference to expertise. In short, "stupid is as stupid does." Most students who make defamatory comments without evidence are just experiencing sour grapes because their incompetence was exposed and they're embarrassed that their high opinion of themselves has been shattered as the delusion it is. The twins got low grades and were mad so they blamed their teacher instead of blaming their own lack of studying, inability to read the material, poor class attendance or just plain lack of talent for the class's discipline. It's hard for someone to learn calculus if they can't multiply or divide.
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Re: Some commenters should have failed out of college...
That's an interesting statement considering that the independant instructor who reviewed the twins papers gave them a full letter grade higher than the original instructor. So maybe you don't know what you're talking about and the students had a ligitimate arguement. At least that's what I'm taking out of that little fact.
And exactly how are students not customers? Apparently you never taught an Economics class (thank goodness) or else you might know that higher education is an industry that has customers (students). In case you actually care to educate yourself further on what constitutes a business: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business
If a student doesn't like the college they attend, they are free to leave and spend their tuition money somewhere else, aren't they? How does that not make them customers? Just because you say so? I realize schools have other means of funding, but without students (customers), they'd be hard pressed to stay in business. Well I'm glad I never had a class with you if that's the way you view your paying customers (students).
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Re: Re: Some commenters should have failed out of college...
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This Stuff is Really Old.
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Freedom of speech
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times are a-changing
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comment
system does not put you in jail, you will be spending
the rest of your life running from those who want you dead.
Jail might be a more safe place. Money will not protect you.
These thoughts apply to the owner of Facebook as well. Get
Wikileaks off your site or face some unhappy reality.
It won't be you that is smiles.
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Not the school's problem
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