aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Blogging student suspended

A Marquette University dental student has been suspended - and must repeat the semester, which costs $14,000 in tuition - for violating the school’s professional code because of entries posted on his blog:

The student admits that some of the entries were “imprudent, immature or crude,” [attorney Scott] Taylor said, but he denies that they constitute misconduct.

Daniel D’Angelo, an adjunct associate professor of behavioral sciences in the School of Dentistry, agreed. He reviewed the student’s blog entries at the request of his parents before the conduct hearing. D’Angelo, who is a co-director of Marquette’s Ethics and Professionalism curriculum, determined that the postings did not justify disciplinary action.

“What he wrote was imprudent, immature and oftentimes distasteful,” D’Angelo wrote in a letter to Anthony Ziebert, a professor who headed the student-faculty review committee that heard the case. “But no matter how much I or anyone else find these entries, rude, distasteful and imprudent, it doesn’t make these entries unethical or immoral.”

Now I’m not alone in thinking the university is wrong, but there are real questions raised by the online activity of students that universities have to learn how to address. Student confusion over what is public and private in an online environment is one.

The petition set up in support of the Marquette student illustrates the confusion. As one of the grounds for overturning the conduct board it lists this:

“Whereas: The University grossly infringed on his right to freedom of speech by using statements made to a close group of friends on his personal blog against him”

Posting something on the internet is inherently public and if intended only for a “close group of friends” doesn’t belong there. Rather than punishing students for such confusion the university should learn how best to educate them.

Via Slashdot. Thanks Joe!