> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • The Evolution of Race in Admissions
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
News
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

A Brief History of Students Secretly Recording Their Professors

In the age of iPhones, some students are recording their instructors. When did this trend start?

By  Steve Kolowich and 
Chris Quintana
December 21, 2017

James O’Keefe, the right-wing activist known for trying to stage sting operations against government agencies and news organizations, appeared on Wednesday at a gathering of conservative students to recruit spies.

Mr. O’Keefe, fresh off a botched attempt to sting The Washington Post, was spotted at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit by Jane Mayer, a reporter for The New Yorker. She posted a photograph of the provocateur surrounded by young men in collared shirts and lanyards.

Mr. O’Keefe was “recruiting kids to go undercover,” wrote Ms. Mayer, for a “secret college campus spy program.”

We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Please make sure your computer, VPN, or network allows javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net.

Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

James O’Keefe, the right-wing activist known for trying to stage sting operations against government agencies and news organizations, appeared on Wednesday at a gathering of conservative students to recruit spies.

Mr. O’Keefe, fresh off a botched attempt to sting The Washington Post, was spotted at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit by Jane Mayer, a reporter for The New Yorker. She posted a photograph of the provocateur surrounded by young men in collared shirts and lanyards.

Mr. O’Keefe was “recruiting kids to go undercover,” wrote Ms. Mayer, for a “secret college campus spy program.”

He later appeared to confirm that in a tweet:

I spoke to thousands of students (and hopefully some future Veritas journalists) about the work that we do at @TPUSA #SAS2017. A bigger army of undercovers, bigger targets, and bigger headlines will shock the media in 2018. pic.twitter.com/YymDUr6NF4

— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 20, 2017

He would be piggybacking on what has become a notorious pastime on college campuses in the age of iPhones and other surreptitious recording devices.

ADVERTISEMENT

Back in 2006, as a young website called YouTube heralded a new age in amateur cinematography, students started posting videos of their professors lecturing — not because they were provocative, but because they were dull. “The boredom of lectures is a frequent theme,” reported Inside Higher Ed, “with audio of a professor talking while students look bored — or in the case of one student at Southern Methodist University, fight a losing battle to stay awake.”

Other students devoted themselves to capturing more-explosive content. That same year, Andrew Jones, a former student at the University of California at Los Angeles, created a website, UCLAprofs.com, aimed at exposing members of the faculty as political radicals. According to the Daily Bruin, Mr. Jones offered cash to students who agreed to supply him with recordings of certain suspected professors.

Professors started to be more careful about letting students record their lectures for reference. Some students didn’t ask permission. Smartphones became ubiquitous, making it difficult to tell who was recording what, and when.

Classroom Recordings as a Subgenre

Secret recordings became a boon to new-media outlets that emerged to blow the whistle on campus liberals. In 2010, Campus Reform, a website devoted to exposing examples of left-wing bias at colleges, publicized a video clip that appeared to show Bradley Schaefer, an astronomy professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, upbraiding conservative students about their views on global warming.

Later, a longer video of the same lecture showed Mr. Schaefer interrogating both sides of the climate-change issue in what the professor described to the Associated Press as an attempt to stimulate discussion about environmental policy. The college did not punish him.

ADVERTISEMENT

Campus Reform turned classroom recordings into a subgenre. In 2013 a student filmed a professor at Michigan State University saying that Republicans “don’t want to pay taxes because they have already raped this country and gotten everything out of it they possibly could.” Campus Reform wrote about it, and the story merited a mention on The O’Reilly Factor.

A year later the website obtained an audio recording of a professor at Eastern Connecticut State University telling his students that, if Republicans had their way, colleges would begin to close. State lawmakers demanded an apology from the professor, and got one.

The sort of work Mr. O’Keefe was recruiting students to do this week may take things even further. The activist’s early attempts to expose campus liberalism have not relied on videos of unprompted offenses against conservative values. Instead, he has dispatched operatives to manufacture controversies in the hope of eliciting embarrassing reactions from college officials. Students working for Mr. O’Keefe’s organization, Project Veritas, have secretly recorded themselves asking administrators to rip up copies of the U.S. Constitution and ban Lucky Charms from the cafeteria because they are offensive to the Irish.

“Project Veritas has already recruited 20 student-journalists,” the organization reportedly wrote in a recent fund-raising email, “ready to help us expose the most egregious, biased, anti-intellectual behavior from their professors.”

Some professors have taken extreme measures to avoid the risk of having classroom discussions go viral. Last month an economics instructor at Duke University was criticized for trying to ban student journalists from her class on hedge funds, which featured guest speakers from the world of finance. “Audio recordings are not permitted,” the lecturer wrote on the syllabus, “and students will be asked to keep the information shared by some of our guest speakers confidential.”

ADVERTISEMENT

That story went viral, and the ban was lifted.

Steve Kolowich writes about ordinary people in extraordinary times, and extraordinary people in ordinary times. Follow him on Twitter @stevekolowich, or write to him at steve.kolowich@chronicle.com.

Chris Quintana is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @cquintanadc or email him at chris.quintana@chronicle.com.

Correction (12/21/2017, 4:41 p.m.): This article originally misquoted a professor at Eastern Connecticut State University. The professor said that “college will start closing if these people have their way,” not “if Republicans have their way, colleges will close.” The article has been updated to reflect this correction.

A version of this article appeared in the January 12, 2018, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Finance & Operations
Steve Kolowich
Steve Kolowich was a senior reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education. He wrote about extraordinary people in ordinary times, and ordinary people in extraordinary times.
Chris Quintana
Chris Quintana was a breaking-news reporter for The Chronicle. He graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Content

  • A Campus-Politics Whodunit: Who Invited James O’Keefe to Speak at Middlebury?
  • Campus Conservatives Get a Lesson in Activism: When Professors Start Ranting, Start Filming
  • Higher Education’s Internet Outrage Machine
  • Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
    Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
  • The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
    The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
    Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin