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The Chronicle of Higher Education made four three major errors in a single sentence on Friday, mangling issues of technology, due process, and sexual ethics in an online story about a student at Calvin College.
Here’s the original lead to the article, posted on their blog…
A Calvin College student has been suspended for one year over a lewd Facebook message he allegedly sent to an ex-girlfriend.
And here’s what’s wrong with it…
1. The student, Tony Harris, wasn’t suspended, he was expelled. The university called it a suspension, but according to the Grand Rapids Press he will have to re-apply after the year is up. If you’re barred from campus and told you have to apply for re-admission, you haven’t been suspended. You’ve been kicked out.
1. The problem with the Facebook posting wasn’t that it was “lewd,” but that it was found to be harassing. The policy Harris was charged under prohibits “communication that degrades or harasses individuals or groups.” Harris was accused of harassing his ex by posting a derogatory sexual message about her, not of posting something lewd.
2. He wasn’t expelled because of the Facebook incident. He was given probation over it, and told to post an apology on his Facebook page. He was expelled for refusing to apologize, and he says he refused to apologize because he wasn’t the one who put up the post.
3. The post in question was a Facebook status update, not a message to the other student.
Why does any of this matter? Because these aren’t random errors. They’re symptomatic of larger weaknesses in writing about student disciplinary matters, sexual ethics, and new technology, failings that are commonplace not just at the Chronicle, but elsewhere as well.
If you’re going to write a story like this, the details matter. The details are all that matters.
There’s a huge difference between being suspended for sending someone a smutty email and being expelled for contesting a disciplinary finding that you harassed someone in a semi-public forum. If you neglect those distinctions, you’re not getting the story. The Chronicle didn’t get this story.
Update: As reader JRH notes, Harris’s status amounts to a suspension rather than an expulsion under the terms of the Calvin College student handbook. Studentactivism.net regrets the error.
A gay first-year student at Jacksonville State University in Alabama claims that he was rejected by the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity because of rumors about his sexual orientation. On one level, this is an unsurprising story. But on another, as Pam Spaulding notes, it’s very interesting indeed.
Steele Jackson says Pi Kappa Phi blackballed him when rumors that he was gay began to circulate, but chapter president Chris Stokes denies it, saying the frat doesn’t “discriminate based on … any kind of orientation.” In that, Stokes is following the mandates of the fraternity’s national body, which bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
So Jackson, a gay student at an Alabama state college, was willing to say so publicly. The president of the local chapter of the fraternity he pledged denied explicitly that the frat discriminates against gay pledges. And they both made their statements in an article in their campus newspaper.
As Spaulding says, “this particular story has a lot to offer in terms of observations about life in Red State America and the changes that are under way.”
Just a quick link on this, since I’m having a ridiculously busy day. I’ll try to come back to it later.
Short version: A California court has ruled that a Christian high school had the legal right to expel two students who it claimed demonstrated a “bond of intimacy … characteristic of a lesbian relationship.”
It also found that school officials did not violate the students’ rights when they revealed the reason for the expulsion to the students’ parents.
The University of Michigan has completed its investigation of a professor who paid a student for sex and allegedly assaulted her.
As we reported at the time, a Michigan law student told police last December that Yaron Eliav, an associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, had struck her with his hand and a belt in the course of a sexual encounter they had arranged through Craigslist.
Police refused to arrest Eliav, who claimed the acts were consensual, for assault, instead charging both student and professor with misdemeanor offenses relating to the exchange of money for sex. Both were ultimately fined and charged court costs.
A university spokesperson told the Ann Arbor News last week that Eliav is currently on paid leave, and that an internal investigation of his role in the incident has been completed. She refused to comment on the outcome of the investigation, or to say what administrative actions, if any, had been taken against Eliav, who has tenure.
Quick link: US News & World Report has a long article out on high schools that have been established to serve lesbian and gay student populations, particularly students who have been victims of bullying in school.
studentactivism.net 
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