Professor Van Ry

The Faculty Senate of the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater has responded to a controversy over a surreptitiously obtained classroom video of a guest lecturer lambasting Republicans by moving to bar students from recording and disseminating such footage.

Although the campus’s chancellor, Richard J. Telfer, has not yet signed off on the videotaping policy, statements issued by him and a spokeswoman on Thursday suggested he expected to approve it as soon as it lands on his desk.

“Faculty on this campus have the right to establish the policies for their individual classrooms,” Mr. Telfer said in a written statement.

“Also,” Mr. Telfer added, “I believe it is important that our faculty and students are able to have the free exchange of ideas without concern that what is said will be communicated beyond the limits of the classroom or campus.”

Kyle R. Brooks, the freshman who recorded the video that triggered the controversy, expressed frustration that the institution had responded to his producing the video rather than what it depicts: a guest lecturer denouncing many Republicans as racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, and dishonest.

“People should have been upset that he came into the classroom and said that,” Mr. Brooks said, “but instead they were upset that I recorded it and made it public.” <Read more.>

Via Peter Schmidt, The Chronicle of Higher Education.