I feel like you’re inserting an interpretation vs what’s actually written. komali2 raises all the problematic scenarios that I was thinking of (and more). Let’s take a hypothetical where I’m an MIT professor. Can I express my own personal view chatting with students after class where I say off hand “I think congress is making a huge mistake with copyright and IP as regards to computer science”? Or how about “I think the government’s role in Aaron Swartz’s suicide needs to have a formal inquiry” or “Aaron Swartz is a brave person and more need to follow his example about standing up to bad IP law”. A professor’s rule isn’t just to teach course material but to show students that everyone should think critically and try to form an opinion instead of deferring to experts all the time. Additionally, the best ones try to engage and connect with their students socially. That’s more difficult if they are aloof because of concerns of repercussions / being unable to voice your opinion.
The problem is the desire to somehow separate and anesthetize political speech as this separate thing. The problem is that all of life is political. You can’t just anesthetize a part of your humanity. You can try to regulate the conduct around it but then you get back into the problems that causes as is well documented by the position paper (which is why no campuses try to enforce that). This whole effort feels like a slippery slope and the position paper is trying to make a valiant effort at playing referee to try to prevent the slope from tilting too much in any direction. Still, I don’t feel like they’ve quite got it. At least not in terms of expressing it objectively vs trying to rule by selective enforcement. Btw I happen to think a good administrator can actually accomplish this and I think that objective rules don’t really help that much here vs general principles you try to uphold but also allow you to apply discretion to each case and a strong well-calibrated moral compass and good advisors from all facets of life and professions to keep you grounded. But bureaucracy abhors discretion.
The problem is the desire to somehow separate and anesthetize political speech as this separate thing. The problem is that all of life is political. You can’t just anesthetize a part of your humanity. You can try to regulate the conduct around it but then you get back into the problems that causes as is well documented by the position paper (which is why no campuses try to enforce that). This whole effort feels like a slippery slope and the position paper is trying to make a valiant effort at playing referee to try to prevent the slope from tilting too much in any direction. Still, I don’t feel like they’ve quite got it. At least not in terms of expressing it objectively vs trying to rule by selective enforcement. Btw I happen to think a good administrator can actually accomplish this and I think that objective rules don’t really help that much here vs general principles you try to uphold but also allow you to apply discretion to each case and a strong well-calibrated moral compass and good advisors from all facets of life and professions to keep you grounded. But bureaucracy abhors discretion.