I just wanted to draw everybody's attention to a recent UMBC Underground piece entitled "4 Professors Not To Take."
There has been a recent backlash from the teachers mentioned calling the piece a form of backlisting--especially since it is published on a sorta school sponsored blog.
So the question that many teachers are raising (both on the blog and in other media) is whether or not this is permittable or ethical.
Is this a freedom of speech issue? Is it harmless fun? Should the mysterious "short" have the right to say whatever he/she wants about anybody? And even if "short" doesn't have the right, what recourse do we have against a nameless virtual entity?
This issue is coming up more and more these days. Knowing that potential employers will Google our names, how can we protect ourselves from anonymous cyber-slanderers?
Dystopian internet, anyone?
3 comments:
Students have the right to criticize their teachers, after all the whole point of the blog is to better inform students of UMBC. Certainly bashing for no reason (like the juicycampus website)is frowned upon, the intentions of students posting professors not to take is to help other students.
Plus the blog style allows for a conversation to occur and clearly input from the students has effected the post because one teacher has already been removed from the list.
im interested to hear what everyone has to say about it. just to let you know though, we are not sponsored by the school in any way. thanks for posting about it!
RALPH?
One thing I want to get straight: criticism does not equal libel or "bashing." It is only libel if the opinions expressed on the blog are stated as unequivocal fact, are indeed false statements, and also cause quantifiable damage to the individual.
As college students at a public university (subsidized and cheaper), we have relatively little say about the quality of our professors. Sure, we have those end of semester scantrons and silly little blue sheets, but do those really add up? Or do people even read them? My guess would be not really. By blogging about our professors via facebook, various blogs, and ratemyprofessors.com, the system is slightly more democratized. To boycott a professor based on ratings would be a calculated political move.
If certain professors cannot stand criticism (no matter how it may strike them as being untrue), they should get out of the limelight. With public positions, attention (both negative and positive) is a given. Students have the right to judge the effectiveness of a teacher, just as a customer has the right to judge a product.
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