FAYETTEVILLE -- Faculty members have mixed reactions to a new University of Arkansas System policy requiring university employees to "make it clear" opinions are their own when speaking publicly about matters of public interest.
Trustees voted unanimously in May to revise a 40-year-old political activity policy affecting employees at 11 two-year colleges and four-year universities, plus other UA System units.
"If employees speak publicly on matters of public interest and are identified by their name and position with the University, they should make every effort to make it clear that the employee's name or opinions are those of the employee and not the University," the revised policy states.
Nate Hinkel, a UA System spokesman, said the policy has no specific penalty or consequence.
"Oftentimes, people fail to acknowledge that an opinion is their personal opinion, and oftentimes it may be wrongly interpreted as being a statement that's representative of our institution," UA System board chairman Ben Hyneman said at the May meeting. "So this would help clarify that and remind people that when they express an opinion, that they're not empowered to speak for the institution."
Faculty members at the Fayetteville campus frequently offer insights to news outlets or through opinion essays.
An older UA System policy on faculty appointments states: "Speaking or writing as a citizen, the faculty member is free from institutional censorship or discipline."
The older policy, last revised in 2001, states faculty members have "a responsibility for awareness that the public may judge the profession and the institution by his or her utterances," and that they "should at all times make an effort to be accurate, exercise good judgment and appropriate restraint, show respect for the opinions of others, and indicate that they are not spokespersons for the institution."
The revised policy "is basically the same thing that I've always understood," said Rob Leflar, a UA law professor who offered his opinion to news outlets after Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld key aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. "That when taking some kind of a political position on a matter of public controversy, that you did that on behalf of yourself rather than the university."
Janine Parry, director of the annual Arkansas Poll, in an email described the revised policy as an "over-correction, probably prompted by someone's discomfort with faculty expressing any number of perspectives currently unpopular with the Legislature."
A group of state legislators in November criticized UA Chancellor G. David Gearhart for his stance against an action taken by the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, according to published reports.
Gearhart, on letterhead from the chancellor's office, wrote to ask the chamber to rescind a resolution calling for repeal of the city's anti-discrimination ordinance. The ordinance, eventually repealed, would have prohibited businesses and employers from discriminating based on characteristics including sexuality or gender identity. In a modified form it will again be put before Fayetteville voters in September.
"That has absolutely nothing to do with it," Hyneman said in an interview when asked if the backlash against Gearhart led to the revised policy. Gearhart, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
UA on Friday notified media outlets Danielle Weatherby, an assistant professor of law, was available to speak about the U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming the legal right to same-sex marriage.
The revised policy is "not overly burdensome to comply with," Weatherby said, though she questioned whether it matters "in the court of public opinion" because when the public sees her title, "they're going to associate my opinion with that of an assistant professor of law."
She's now active in a political effort known as For Fayetteville, advocating for passage of the city's proposed anti-discrimination ordinance. In material released by the organization Friday, she's identified as a "legal expert."
UA System policy for decades has stated that employees have a right to engage in political activity, but that "no employee may involve the institution's name, symbols, property, or supplies in political activities."
"I certainly use my personal email address and personal cellphone for all of my political activity with the campaign, and I always try to disclaim that my opinion, my legal commentary, and my public statement with respect to the nondiscrimination ordinance are that of mine and not the university," Weatherby said.
UA's old political activity policy was "fairly standard" compared with other institutions, said Jordan Kurland, associate general secretary for the American Association of University Professors.
But with regard to the revised policy's language, "I don't recall ever seeing a sentence like that before," he said, describing the new policy as overly broad and "killing flies with a sledgehammer."
Hinkel, with the UA System, said the revised policy was not modeled on any policy elsewhere.
Parry emphasized the expertise of faculty members should be shared publicly, stating "I do have concerns that -- as written -- this 'clarification' may quiet scientists who have data and analysis to offer on matters of consequence."
Nicole Civita, a legal scholar who leads UA's Food Recovery Project, wondered about definitions for matters of public concern or political activity. No such formal definitions exist for the UA System specifically, according to Hinkel.
"Without a clear and appropriately narrow definition, this could require most faculty members to constantly caveat their remarks in a way that feels overly formalistic and distracting," Civita wrote in an email.
Jason Endacott, an assistant professor in UA's curriculum and instruction department, called the revised policy "a great idea."
Endacott co-writes a blog, EduSanity, that offers opinion and analysis of education policies.
"We enjoy the mark of credibility in part because we are faculty at a flagship university. We also enjoy academic freedom to discuss public issues as we see fit. Since the university allows me the freedom to engage in public scholarship or political activity without unduly influencing my public voice, then it is reasonable to ask me to provide such a disclaimer," Endacott wrote in an email, adding that he planned to put such a disclaimer on the EduSanity blog.
NW News on 06/29/2015