Trial by YouTube

Abstract

Media campaigns against professors exercising their academic freedom to teach are being addressed in eerily similar ways. At Michigan State University in the first week of September 2013, and at the University of Kansas two weeks later, tenured professors were suspended from their teaching duties by administrative action without due process. Although suspension has long been regarded as a disciplinary measure short of dismissal, in the new atmosphere of social media blitzkrieg, the action is represented as a rescue operation to protect the teaching professor from cameras, clamor, and death threats. At the same time, some administrators suggest that the professors who have offended the sensibilities of some of their students may have poisoned the learning environment. The authors review and defend academic freedom in the new climate.

Keywords: academic freedom, social media, due process