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Keep rogue profs from embarrassing your college on social media

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Not everything on social media is as private as professors might think. 

It’s not uncommon for professors to be on social media sites like Facebook, interacting with colleagues and students.

The trouble is, some of these professors might not be aware of who’s viewing their profiles and posts.

According to a study conducted by Pew Research, 40% of social media users don’t use privacy restrictions on their profiles, meaning anyone can see them.

Even if professors have private profiles, a careless post can easily be leaked to the public if one of their contacts chooses to share it.

Because of this, stories about employees embarrassing their employers with their social media shenanigans are unfortunately becoming more common.

Prof’s dark humor leads to police investigation

Here’s one instance where a professor’s bad joke on Facebook turned into a court case for his college.

Northwest Missouri State University (NWSU) is a regional state school with around 7,000 students.

In September 2013, during an interview with NWSU Police Chief Clarence Green for the school paper, a student interviewer mentioned a faculty member had posted on Facebook that he was going to climb the campus bell tower and shoot students.

Green asked for the professor’s name and a printout of the Facebook post. When the reporter refused to provide either, Green got a warrant to search the newspaper’s office. Officers found the printout and discovered the author of the post was mass communications instructor Matthew Rouch.

Rouch later explained he made the comment in response to his colleague Jody’s statement on Facebook that she found it pointless when people asked her on the third day of the school year how the semester was going.

“My response, which I thought was humorous,” said Rouch, was that he started the year feeling optimistic but “[b]y October, I’ll be wanting to get up to the top of the bell tower with a high powered rifle – with a good scope, and probably a gatling gun as well.”

Rouch acknowledged others didn’t seem amused. “Jody joked back something like ‘attention NSA. I do not know this man.’ I gave it a thumbs up.

“I wrote another comment. ‘Uh, I hope everyone knows I was just kidding.’ Nobody responded to that. So I wrote one final one, ‘Uh, I guess not.’” He then deleted all three comments.

Green later talked to Jody, who said she found Rouch’s statement in bad taste but thought it was meant as a joke.

The ‘threats’ escalate 

The next day, an administrator called the chief to report a professor heard Rouch say something about having a bomb on campus.

Green talked to the professor, who told him that Rouch said something like, “Yesterday they thought it was a gun. Today I’ve brought a bomb.”

The chief took Rouch into custody. Rouch admitted making the remark, but insisted it was a joke.

Green put Rouch on a 24-hour investigative hold for making terroristic threats and had the building searched for a bomb. None was found.

Green also interviewed Rouch’s colleagues. They all said they thought Rouch was just kidding. He then obtained a warrant to search Rouch’s home for firearms. Instead, officers found marijuana.

Charged with two felony drug charges, Rouch asked the court to quash the search warrant and exclude the evidence against him. A trial court did – and an appeals court affirmed.

To be valid, the warrant had to be supported by probable cause to believe that the search would reveal either criminal contraband or the evidence of a crime.

Instead, Chief Green acknowledged he wanted the warrant to assess Rouch’s ability to commit a violent crime in the future.

The trial court found the chief misled the court by presenting Rouch’s remarks out of context and leaving out evidence that showed Rouch was trying to be funny.

And the appeals court rejected the state’s argument that finding firearms would have gone toward proving Rouch made a terroristic threat or a false bomb report. Even if he’d had firearms, that wasn’t illegal, wasn’t evidence of a crime, and had no bearing on whether Rouch made a joke as opposed to a threat.

State v. Rouch, No. WD 77725, 2014 WL 7174236 (Mo. Ct. App. 12/16/14).

Social media takeaways

The case above may have been an overreaction on the campus police’s fault, but it was still a headache and a potential embarrassment for the college.

Make sure your professors are aware that what they post online could have consequences.

Consider sending out an email with the following checklist:

  • Are your social media profiles private? Do you understand the privacy settings for each social media profile you have?
  • Try Google searching yourself. Posts from social media occasionally pop up in search results.
  • Would you feel comfortable saying in public anything you’d post on social media? If not, you probably shouldn’t post it.
  • Does your social media activity fall within the scope of your college’s social media policy?

The post Keep rogue profs from embarrassing your college on social media appeared first on Higher Ed Morning.


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