Social Media and Academic Freedom

Friday, April 13th, 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm in Curtin 175 

The explosion of social media in the 21st century has posed a host of new problems for public and private employers, including small businesses, large corporations, and local, state, and federal institutions. Over the past several years, colleges and universities in particular have been involved in many instances in which professors have been vilified and attacked for things they have tweeted or posted on Facebook. The aim of this symposium is to take up the ways in which social media have come to impact and indeed to threaten academic freedom. Speakers will not only consider the relation between online speech and academic freedom but will also address the responsibilities of college and university administrators to protect and defend their faculty, students, and staff from orchestrated online smear campaigns.

Presented by the Center for 21st Century Studies.