Posted on: January 28th, 2009
Category: Budget Crisis, Democracy, Honesty, Jon, Protect the Powerless
An incredibly eerie story, hot off the presses from The Hoot:
Students working for Brandeis’ Phone-a-Thon received an e-mail last night from Brandeis Giving Officer Mathew Magida that informed them they would be “placed on probation immediately” if they wrote anything or spoke out about the decision to close the Rose Art Museum.
In the e-mail, Magida wrote “You are all paid employees of the Brandeis University Office of Development and Alumni Relations. It is in incredibly poor taste for you to write anything that can be perceived as slanderous or offensive about the University. Several members of the Development Staff, including myself, are going through facebook, blogs, boston.com, and online petitions.”
“If I see you have written anything (positive or negative) about the Rose Art Museum, you will be placed on probation immediately.”
The e-mail was obtained by The Hoot from a Phone-a-Thon employee who wished to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions.
Further down, the article seems to indicate that the e-mail was not official policy. David Nathan, Director of communications in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, has said that the missive was sent without his knowledge, and that Phone-a-Thon employees would be briefed that “the e-mail does not reflect this department’s policies”.
I’m willing to accept the possibility that this was sent accidentally, by a rogue department member; however, it is still very troubling. Why would an officer of the University ever think it would be OK to threaten students with the loss of their jobs for speech conducted off of the job? Action needs to be taken to combat such a mentality from developing in the administration.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I work at the Phonathon and we just an emergency meeting about Matt Magida’s e-mail and the Hoot article. Matt is not a rogue department member; he is our boss who most of us work with weekly, and what he said was wrong, illegal, inappropriate and also not checked by the rest of the department.
There was a senior development officer at the meeting, Mark Abelman, who clarified that we are allowed to post and talk about whatever we want wherever we want to, as long as it’s not when we’re working on the phone with alumni. When we’re at our job, we have the follow a script and stay non-partisan, which is totally reasonable and understandable. They basically said that the e-mail was incorrect and there was “miscommunication.” AKA Matt sent out the e-mail without checking with anyone, including our Students Rights.
So basically, they revoked the e-mail, and they won’t fire us if we sign an online petition. Ridiculous that they thought they could ever do that in the first place.
January 28th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
It must be understood that this is a terrible time for the development office, especially those in charge of alumni giving, so I feel that while it may not have been right to send such a missive, it is an understandable spur-of-the-moment reaction. Alumni are using the closing of the Rose as just another excuse for why they cannot give to support our cause on even a small participatory level. The student backlash makes them feel more justified, although they are really hurting the students who would have received any gifts as financial aid. Matt certainly gets carried away at times but that does not mean that the development office is a bad, Big Brother organization. Sara Novello, another annual giving officer, assured me that our rights as student employees are not in danger and the emergency meeting held today show a great willingness to acknowledge any wrongdoing on their part.
January 28th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
…That’s a fucking CIVIL RIGHTS violation
January 28th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
The Hoot just published an update to the story online:
http://thehoot.net/articles/4733
January 29th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I am a Phonathon worker and was absolutely furious when I heard about this. I am abroad so I am off the list serve and did not get the offending e-mail, but this policy would be absolutely absurd. I write opinion pieces for both campus papers and never considered or condoned to give up doing so for my campus job. I never would have applied to work at phonathon if that were a prerequisite.