A tenured faculty member at Juniata College, in Pennsylvania, is facing censure after writing a comment on Facebook critical of his institution’s reopening plans in light of the pandemic.
Administrators at the college placed a letter of reprimand in Douglas A. Stiffler’s personnel file after he wrote that “as the result of Juniata’s decision to hold classes in person, it is quite possible that people who come on to Juniata’s campus will die, as will people in town. That is what is at stake.”
Those words, which Stiffler wrote as a comment on a National Public Radio segment he’d posted about colleges’ responses to the pandemic, violated Juniata’s Faculty Manual, the provost, Lauren Bowen, wrote in the letter of reprimand. The college recognized Stiffler’s right to speak up, she wrote, but “when you state publically [sic] that Juniata’s decision could cause people who come to campus to die, you have gone beyond offering feedback on policy and are not exercising the restraint and respect expected of faculty.”
What faculty members have the right to say, and how, has long been the subject of debate in academe, but the pandemic — and national racial unrest — has sparked a new wave of that conversation. Many faculty members, particularly those who aren’t protected by tenure, feel their ability to express their opinions is limited by administrative policy, unspoken threats, or both.
To Stiffler, an associate professor of history, the letter infringed on his academic freedom, and risked chilling the speech of other faculty members. “Tenure is a tremendous privilege, and with it comes responsibility,” Stiffler said. “Those who don’t have tenure are in a particularly vulnerable position and, I think, find the administration’s actions very alarming.”
To Bowen and the college, Stiffler’s comment fed toxic rhetoric about reopening: Bowen wrote in an email to The Chronicle that she feared Stiffler’s comment “would further incite fear and panic” among students and in the local community.
‘Say Something’
Stiffler didn’t think his comment would be widely seen. He wrote it on August 7, 10 days before in-person classes were set to resume at Juniata, a small, semirural campus attended primarily by Pennsylvania natives. When others began discussing the reopening in the comments on the article he’d posted, Stiffler decided to weigh in.
He hesitated at first. He had been posting almost daily about colleges’ reopening plans, but had refrained from saying anything about Juniata’s. Yet “I felt like, ‘Gee, why am I thinking this way, that I have this sort of self-censorship?” he told The Chronicle. “If I want to participate in a conversation about a public and institutional issue … then I should participate.”
I felt like, ‘Gee, why am I thinking this way, that I have this sort of self-censorship?'
The recent death of U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the civil-rights leader, spurred him. “There was a lot of talk about John Lewis’s life and ‘when you see something that’s not right, say something,’” Stiffler said, referring to a Lewis quote. “I started to ask myself, Why am I not saying something? Because there are some things that are troubling me about our reopening.”
Stiffler had largely forgotten about the comment when his chair called him about it a few days later. Someone had complained about it, she told him, and he might want to be more careful about his posts in the future. Stiffler understood, and agreed to be cautious in his posts. The call was amicable, he said, and ended in a mutual understanding that the issue had been resolved.
Several days later, however, Stiffler received an email from Bowen asking that they meet over Zoom “to discuss the reopening of the college and concerns you have expressed about it in social media.” The invitation struck Stiffler as an opportunity to share his thoughts, so he was surprised when, at the start of the meeting, Bowen “launched into pretty legalistic language, saying that a letter was being placed in my file, that my action in making that comment had violated a section of the faculty handbook, and that such a comment was actionable and sanctionable.”
After the meeting, Stiffler pondered what to do. “Well, it’s just a letter, and it’s just a warning,” he said he thought, “and no serious consequences would likely follow.” He wondered if he should drop the issue, but after receiving the document from Bowen later that day and talking to colleagues, “it started to really bother me.”
A Vague Standard
Suzanne F. Nossel, chief executive of PEN America, a free-speech advocacy organization, said Stiffler’s reaction was on target. “I think it’s very heavy-handed and disproportionate to submit a formal letter of reprimand in response to a passing comment on Facebook, on an issue that is of obvious public concern that many people are debating that is emotional, that has health and safety implications,” said Nossel, author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All .
Nossel acknowledged that a clause in Juniata’s Faculty Manual — which is based on a 1940 statement by the American Association of University Professors — dictates that scholars should be measured in expressing their opinions publicly. But she said Stiffler’s comment fell within the bounds of acceptable speech. “There needs to be leeway for someone to be able to debate these very thorny questions, of whether and how and when institutions should reopen in light of the pandemic, without having to fear censure by their employer,” she said.
There needs to be leeway for someone to be able to debate these very thorny questions.
Juniata’s case against Stiffler might have been stronger if he had waged a “sustained campaign” denouncing the college’s policies, Nossel said, but “a casual conversation or approach by a department chair,” like the one Stiffler first had, would have been an appropriate way to handle the situation.
What’s more, Nossel said, to claim Stiffler had not exercised proper restraint in his comment was a slippery slope. “Restraint is a nebulous concept. I think it’s a bit troubling to predicate a policy on the idea of restraint because I think it’s difficult to define,” she said. “That standard really suffers from vagueness. That may be why the university has so readily overreached here.”
At a time when strongly worded opinions about reopening plans have repeatedly made headlines, Stiffler said he thought he’d exercised “quite a bit of restraint.”
The letter of reprimand he was handed, he said, smacks of the corporate practice of “papering the file” — amassing documentation of an employee’s infractions that can be used in later disciplinary proceedings. “It was really puzzling to be suddenly told that this was unrestrained, because it just seemed like part of a national debate that was going on all around us … I can’t explain why that would have been so triggering for them,” Stiffler said.
Bowen said that, given the precautions and public-heath protocols Juniata had laid out ahead of its reopening, she found Stiffler’s posted comment “inflammatory.”
“I thought the post was overly dramatic in the context of the extraordinary efforts of so many on our campus to ensure health and safety,” she said.
Intervening as provost, Bowen said, was “a judgment call.”
“As a longtime faculty member who has taught for more than 30 years,” she continued, “this isn’t a decision that I made lightly. Due to my responsibilities to the broader community, I felt this warranted outreach.”
Bowen, who is entering her seventh year as Juniata’s provost and is a member of its politics faculty, said she’d cautioned one other faculty member about questions of academic freedom, but that incident involved classroom conduct.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
Stiffler said he’s considering his next steps. He’s informed Juniata’s Personnel Evaluation Committee, whose primary responsibility is reviewing tenure and promotion cases but which also oversees academic-freedom cases, of his situation. J. Jackson Barlow, the seven-member committee’s chair, wrote in an email to The Chronicle that the panel was “considering its course(s) of action.” Pending any steps by the committee, Stiffler said, he may also choose to file a formal grievance.
In the meantime, Stiffler and Bowen have made informal attempts to make peace. The two talked by phone on August 25, Stiffler said, after which he emailed Bowen with a suggestion: “Let’s just end this rather than drag it out … we both have more important things to worry about. If you remove/rescind the letter, I will … not discuss with anyone beyond the narrow circle with whom I have discussed the matter already.”
In an email provided to The Chronicle, Bowen wrote back that she was “not prepared to remove the letter from your file at this time,” but that she was willing to add to Stiffler’s personnel file a response to her warning “that would presumably state all the reasons you disagree with the action I have taken.” The original letter of reprimand, she offered, could be expunged at the end of the academic year, “on the condition that there are no additional violations of that particular provision of the Faculty Manual between now and then.” Stiffler declined.
On September 1, Stiffler approached Bowen with another offer: Would she withdraw the letter if he acknowledged he’d received a verbal warning from her about his Facebook comment? Over the next several days, the two went back and forth, but were unable to reach an agreement, emails show. Bowen said she would remove the warning from Stiffler’s file if he assured her in writing that he would “refrain from comments that violate the Faculty Manual.”
Stiffler insisted that his comment had done no such thing, asserting his right, and other faculty members’, “to speak on issues of public importance in my social media, as is the norm in our profession.”
