As debate about the Sept. 18 “Ethics Matters” newsletter sent to University employees continues, faculty and staff across campus are being affected by the policy that some employees are calling a restriction on free speech. University officials are saying that the memo is not University policy, but rather a reiteration of a state law that has been in place since 2003. Still, campus employees have publicly spoken out against it, and groups involved are now putting pressure on University administrators to reconsider the controversial policy. But how are faculty and students really being affected?

Ethics policy uniquely affects student employees

The ethics provisions, which have become a source of contention for the University, are not limited to the activities of professors. Many students, both graduate and undergraduate, also fall under the blanket of University employees.

University spokesman Tom Hardy said the policies being enforced are state laws that have been around since 2003. However, controversy arose when the most recent edition of Ethics Matter, an online newsletter from the University’s Ethics Office, clearly defined what constitutes a violation of the policy.

The policy raises unique questions for student employees. According to the newsletter, no employee may wear pins or T-shirts supporting a candidate or party, distribute fliers or attend a rally specifically supporting a candidate or party while on University property.

The law covers everyone on the University’s payroll equally.

Some student employees, however, did not receive the newsletter.

Amanda Silver, freshman in LAS and dining hall employee, said she had not received any e-mails regarding ethics from the University.

“I have never heard about that,” Silver said. She added that she does have to complete online ethics training, but was surprised to hear about the e-mail.

Graduate student employees did receive the newsletter and some reacted strongly against the statutes.

On Oct. 2, a group of graduate students and professors attended a pro-Barack Obama rally as an act of “civil disobedience,” said rally organizer and graduate student Dan Colson, who is an English teaching assistant.

John Craw, graduate student and philosophy teaching assistant, said he reacted with a mixture of “sympathy and suspicion” toward the e-mail.

“It struck me as the kind of constraint that would be reasonable given certain kinds of facts about student behavior and faculty behavior,” Craw said.

He also said he understands why some students have objections to the policy.

“I think a lot of people feel that it’s objectionable for probably two main reasons,” Craw said. “One is the obvious fact that we’re not simply employees; we’re people with opinions and values, and we have a right to express those opinions as autonomous individuals.”

The other reason, he said, is that it seems like the kind of issue that could fall on a “slippery slope.”

Ethics policy affects UI classrooms

Some University professors have mixed feelings about how the ethics policy is affecting their classrooms.

Scott Althaus, associate professor of communication and political science, said the memo sent out by the University Ethics Office was an attempt to translate the vague guidelines of state laws into a context that would apply to the University.

Paul Diehl, professor of political science, said he supports the policy’s intent to keep partisan political behavior outside the workplace. He added, however, that the original rules were designed generally for state employees – namely, state office workers in Springfield and Chicago.

“When you translate those (rules) to a university setting, they don’t make a lot of sense,” Diehl said.

Diehl said none of the classes he teaches would be affected by the ethics policy.

He added that he believes the teaching environment is damaged when professors wear political buttons or have political bumper stickers in their office. However, he said it may be an infringement on the University’s academic mission.

“Restricting the kind of events that can take place on campus, who can attend … potentially stifles learning,” he said.

Althaus said the policy is not prohibiting any learning in his classes, but there are certain educational opportunities, particularly for students in the political science department, that might be questioned under the ethics guidelines.

For example, he said the University has partnered with other Big Ten schools to conduct a survey on Midwest voters’ attitudes about John McCain and Barack Obama. He added that conducting an opinion poll related to anticipating an election outcome is behavior specifically prohibited by the ethics policy.

“On the face of it, this educational activity to help clarify the social dimension of the election … would seem to fall afoul of this particular guideline,” Althaus said.

He added that the Big Ten Battleground Poll is not advocating a particular candidate, but helps clarify the election. Althaus wondered if this type of knowledge being produced would be considered unethical.

Margaret Flinn, assistant professor of French and cinema studies, said the ethics policy “has had a very positive – if no doubt unintended – effect” on one of her classes, which she said deals with aesthetics and politics in film. Flinn said she had an interesting discussion about the policy with her class.

“I think the most important thing here is that the context matters,” Flinn said. “We’re on a university campus, where learning is taking place in the classroom and outside of it, and a professor’s political engagements can stimulate that kind of discussion.”

Diehl said the ethics policy will probably have no effect on classroom learning, especially since he believes it will not be enforced.

According to the policy, “The University Ethics Office cannot and does not intend to police each of the campuses for political buttons, T-shirts, bumper stickers, etc.” Diehl said at most there may be a “chilling effect” because professors may be reluctant to invite political candidates to class for a learning experience or instigate certain educational opportunities for students, in fear that they might be violating the ethics rules.

“My mantra is that it all comes back to applications of rules that were designed for one context that don’t always make sense for our own context,” Diehl said.

Ethics policy outside the classroom

Restrictions on the political expression of University faculty continue even outside the classroom.

According to the University ethics policy, faculty are prohibited from displaying any kind of political paraphernalia in offices, such as posters and political buttons, and also political bumper stickers if faculty members park in University parking lots.

The policy also prohibits any political involvement on campus, including political rallies.

According to the University ethics Web site, members of the University faculty act as a representation of the University’s views, and for them to express their views on campus might represent the University as a biased institution.

However, many professors and faculty members have said they oppose the ethics policy.

“No. I don’t agree (with it),” said David Gehrig, research programmer of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Ward 2 alderman for the Urbana City Council. “I think it’s a pretty serious breach of the First Amendment. I think it’s unconstitutional.”

University spokesman Tom Hardy said that this is a state law that has been around since 2003, and that its enforcement is no more in violation of a citizen’s rights than a punishment given for speeding. A citizen should be responsible enough to act within the law.

Hardy added that some tenured faculty members have lifelong job guarantees and will lash out against anything that might inhibit their freedom of expression.

Gehrig said this is not an acceptable law to begin with and freedom of speech applies to political speech as well. Any censorship of it is a violation, especially at a university, which, he argued, is based around open discussion.

Similarly opposed is Jane Kuntz, an instructor in French.

“Trying to keep a college campus free of any political messages is like trying to ban beer,” Kuntz said. “It’s going to happen one way or the other, so we might as well have it where everyone can see it,”

Kuntz said she agrees that professors should not go off on political tangents when they should be teaching their students, but she does not believe that the same political repression should be applied outside the classroom.

“Students are not so unsophisticated that they’re intimidated by professors’ political views, anyway,” Kuntz said.

Gehrig said he agrees students are not necessarily influenced or uncomfortable because professors hold views, so long as they do not impose their view upon students in class. He argued that outside the classroom, political discussion can provoke stimulating debate and conversation and will rarely alter what a student thinks.

“This is a policy protecting against something that doesn’t happen,” said Gehrig, “We’re giving up First Amendment rights for it.”

Organizations, protest rallies pressure University to re-examine ethics stance

Organizations examining the University’s controversial ethics policy are now pressuring the University to reconsider its rules.

The American Civil Liberties Union requested a response from President B. Joseph White by the end of business Monday, according a letter sent from the ACLU to White on Oct. 2.

In the letter, the ACLU criticized the University’s interpretation of the State Employees and Officials Ethics Act in a newsletter sent to faculty on Sept. 18.

“The ACLU’s position is that President White’s memo presented restrictions that are greater than the state law,” said Esther Patt, president of the Champaign branch of the ACLU.

The letter asks White to modify the interpretation of the policy to allow faculty to attend partisan rallies on campus when not on duty, sport partisan buttons when not on duty or in the workplace, and display partisan bumper stickers on their cars in University parking lots.

“Many of these employees, like graduate students or undergraduate part-time work-study students, pass through the roles of employee and student of the University throughout the day,” the letter said.

At a pro-Obama rally held on the Quad Thursday, organizer Dan Colson, a doctoral student in English, said he and his fellow protesters planned to report themselves to the University Ethics Office on Friday morning. It could not be confirmed that the reports were actually processed because of state privacy laws.

The University of Illinois Graduate Employees Organization also approved at its Oct. 1 meeting the issue of a written statement to the University “demanding protection under the First Amendment,” according to a press release.

The organization unanimously approved issuing the statement, which condemns the University and the state’s “disregard” for First Amendment rights.

University administrators were not available for further comment Sunday.