"The Faculty Senate of the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater has responded to a controversy over a surreptitiously obtained classroom video of a guest lecturer lambasting Republicans by moving to bar students from recording and disseminating such footage. [...]"Kyle R. Brooks, the freshman who recorded the video that triggered the controversy, expressed frustration that the institution had responded to his producing the video rather than what it depicts: a guest lecturer denouncing many Republicans as racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, and dishonest.
"'People should have been upset that he came into the classroom and said that,' Mr. Brooks said, 'but instead they were upset that I recorded it and made it public.'"
Schmidt, Peter. "Campus Stung by Controversial Video Moves to Ban Recordings in Class." Chronicle of Higher Education. March 28, 2014. http://www.chronicle.com/article/Campus-Stung-by-Controversial/145595/
I get that classroom recordings can sometimes be a problem or be seen as a problem. I sympathize with Kyle R. Brooks to some extent: UAlbany's Vice President for Student Success Christine Bouchard evidently vociferously defended the free speech rights of even such as the Westboro Baptist Church and the free speech rights of Jim Deferio (see http://minervawept.blogspot.com/2013/08/speechless.html) while being OK with SUNY Albany threatening me and my mother for my having reported academic dishonesty, sexual harassment, and retaliation to the point of even threatening me not to communicate with anyone at the university other than chronic liar, threat-writer, and professional incompetent Clarence L. McNeill. Quite a double standard, or maybe it's not because Bouchard shows she's rather consistent about the kind of speech she'll staunchly defend (homophobic hate speech) and the kind she despises (the reporting of academic dishonesty, sexual harassment, and retaliation at SUNY Albany). If she's not a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, she wouldn't have trouble finding a home there.
However, banning classroom recordings can be problematic.
When I'd asked then-Communication Department Chair Jeanette Altarriba about whether Michael W. Barberich's lectures were being recorded (so that I could provide her documentary evidence of his academic dishonesty and sexual harassment rather than just my testimony), she wouldn't even give me a straight answer.
CKP to Jeanette Altarriba, November 9, 2011 11:11 AM:
"Does [Michael W. Barberich], or do any of his TAs, record the class? Or had he given permission to any students to record the class? If so, he should have mentioned that when you said there was no recording of the class, it seems to me. It would have helped if there were a recording."
Jeanette Altarriba to CKP, November 9, 2011 3:55:32 PM:
"To my knowledge, the class is not recorded, but the recording of a course is not typical. It would involve some express permissions by students and instructors and express statements as to what can/cannot be done with those recordings. Signed statements are best, in this regard, ahead of time."
CKP to Jeanette Altarriba, November 21, 2011 10:24 AM
"If he gave permission to a student or students to record the class, or if he or any of his TAs do so, you could hear his jokes for yourself if you have any doubt about what I'm telling you. It seems to me you must doubt it, or otherwise it seems to me you would have acted more decisively to put a stop to what he's doing."
Jeanette Altarriba to CKP, November 21, 2011 10:30:41 AM:
"As Chair of the Department of Communication, I do not take lightly any comments or reports from in-class behaviors that offend students or otherwise make them uncomfortable. As you brought issues to my attention, they have been addressed through internal mechanisms to do so."
CKP to the so-called Office of Diversity and Inclusion misled by Title IX "Coordinator" Tamra Minor, December 3, 2011 1:14 AM, excerpts:
"Can professors make jokes about sexual penetration, pornography and violence against women? Can department chairs defend professors who do that? Do students have to remain in such a class when they don't want to, but need the class to graduate and are given no other option, even when they repeatedly ask for help? [...]
"On October 27th I asked a professor I knew in the Women's Studies department [Janelle Hobson] if I should report the joke to your office as well. She wrote back on the 28th in part 'Give him a chance to apologize or acknowledge offense before taking it to the ODI. You don't really want to take it to that level unless you think his behavior will cause discrimination to you or someone else.' [He didn't ever apologize or acknowledge offense: far from it - he kept engaging in such behavior and retaliated against me for reporting it] [...]
"What happened after the chair [Jeanette Altarriba] spoke to the professor [Michael W. Barberich] about the sexual penetration joke he'd made? Did it stop?
"It didn't stop. [...]
"I mentioned the joke he'd made about how we could shock one of his TAs until she screamed. She [Jeanette Altarriba] didn't reply. That was really disheartening. The encouragement she'd originally given me, the seriousness with which she had seemed to be treating the matter, now seemed to be so much smoke blown in my face, a way of getting me out of her office and dropping the issue. The issues I'd raised 'have been addressed through internal mechanisms,' she wrote me, a bit of empty bureaucratic writing if there ever was. She'd defended him as doing his best,' thus denying that I'd raised any issues, putting me down as expecting 'perfection.' And worst of all, nothing had changed, things had only gotten worse: how things been 'addressed' if nothing had changed?
"I e-mailed the Women's Studies professor [Janelle Hobson] I'd e-mailed earlier, telling her about the other jokes he'd made, including the one about how we could shock one of his TAs until she screams. Had it reached the point where I could contact the ODI, I asked?
"I didn't receive a response [from Janelle Hobson]. That was disheartening too, and a couple other people I have respect for that I'd e-mailed for advice, people who had been responding to me up until then, also greeted my e-mail about that with total silence [...]
"I've continued to force myself to go to the class, only because I absolutely have to [the chair wouldn't let me drop it], because the department chair tells me that it's almost over, because nobody will stop these things from happening and I don't seem to have any real options, haven't been given any, haven't gotten the help I so desperately need. I would drop the class in a second if it weren't required, even though I can't really afford to lose the tuition money, even though I would hate to have to stay at UA another semester to make up those credits somewhere else if I were permitted. Despite the majority of my professors at UA being good or even great (despite the chair mocking the idea of quality professors), the chair feels this situation is acceptable for a student to endure, for me to endure. Would you agree?
"In a way the chair's lack of expressed concern, the lack of real change, has bothered me as much or maybe in some ways more than the professor's behavior. When people in a position to do something turn their back, or do nothing: that really hurts. It is a stab right to a person's heart and soul. What good is power if it can't be used for good?
"Other professors at UA, at other colleges, retired professors I know, friends, family: some of them have repeatedly warned me that by pressing these issues I will make a 'target' of myself [for retaliation]. I e-mailed the chair mentioning that, and she said those people were giving me bad advice, and that I'm not a 'target.'
"One professor who I've communicated with for years [William Husson], I'd been informing about what's been going on, and he told me in private that he feels uncomfortable being told about those things by me. He works with [Michael W. Barberich]; he's not friends but is friendly with him, and he doesn't want to feel like he has to pick sides, and wanted me to stop discussing it with him. [...]
"it was disheartening. Nor wanting to hear about it, wanting to maintain the status quo: that is taking sides, in a way. And it's saying in effect, 'he's a good guy, I don't want to hear anything he's doing that's wrong that would make me change my opinion.' Others have advised me in no uncertain terms, 'drop it.' Or 'handle this after graduation, while you're not still in a class with him where he's in a position of power over you,' which of course he currently is. He could give me a bad grade, or fail me, or have me disciplined, or perhaps expelled, hurt me any number of ways, or so it seems to me. [I didn't expect he'd file a false police report about me claiming I was some kind of active shooter, but on December 6, 2011 he did.] Or people say variations on those, things like (to paraphrase): 'that doesn't sound like him,' 'maybe you're losing sight of everything he does right!', 'nobody's ever reported him before,' 'think about what reporting it would do to his career,' 'worry about what he could do to you: he will fight, he will retaliate, and I can't tell you exactly what he will do to you because I don't know.' The man's behavior already scares me as it is; the defense of him by the chair [Jeanette Altarriba] scares me; these warnings dismay me and scare me even more.
"Is it any wonder he (or anyone like him) hasn't been reported before, when so many voices are quick to do their best to discourage the reporting of terrible acts. Maybe other people HAVE tried but were successfully discouraged. I have an e-mail from a couple years back that another adult learner at UA sent me that said this professor's class had reduced her (like me) to tears, and that she only got through it because of the kindness and support of another professor she had that semester [a professor who's since left UA]. Like me, she was grateful for the quality professors at UA; they deserve more recognition! [...]
"I've expressed an interest to the chair in having his class recorded, or having someone come to observe it, so that I am not all alone in what I'm honestly reporting. There's so many reasons why other students might not: they're young, busy, working, fearful, accepting: who knows. [...]
"I'm being beaten down for trying to get help, not just for me, but for the other students, for future students. In a way even for the professor [Michael W. Barberich], who must have issues of some kind to be acting the way he does, right? It's absolutely, completely terrible and I would not wish it on anyone. No student, not a single one, should have this experience at UA, or anywhere else for that matter.
