Professor verbally abusing students

[dvsDave]

I was extremely upset to find this post on Reddit today:

https://www.reddit.com/r/techtheatre/comments/axd6qv/what_does_a_healthy_student_professor/

The basic premise is a student at a university created a new throwaway account to ask if a professor giving every student in the department anxiety because he screams and yells and reduces them to tears is normal?

Oh hell no. If you have a Reddit account, please offer the student your advice and share that this is unacceptable. @gafftaper has already responded, but the more voices that reinforce the message, the better.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

I think someone oughtta wear a wire. Audio recorder apps for cellphone are a dime a dozen.

Get half a dozen recordings of him screaming at half a dozen different people, and he'll be in front of the tenure committee within the week.

 

[MNicolai]

I think someone oughtta wear a wire. Audio recorder apps for cellphone are a dime a dozen.

Get half a dozen recordings of him screaming at half a dozen different people, and he'll be in front of the tenure committee within the week.

Don't know what state this student is in but that's possibly illegal. I know here in FL we're a 2-party consent state and recording someone without their consent where there is any expectation of privacy is a crime at the state level under wiretapping statutes.

Even for something benign like taking notes at a project meeting if I want to record the conversation for my future reference I have to notify everyone in the room first.

Now if the professor goes off on someone in a hallway or area of the campus where there's no expectation of privacy and record it with their phone then that's perfectly legitimate.

 

[JohnD]

As far as the recording of conversations, in the US, most states allow one party consent.
Recording Consent

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Two issues there - there is a difference between illegal and not valid for evidence.

I think the latter is more likely, but it doesn't have to be evidentiary in court, just in a tenure committee, a lower standard.

And if the professor did decide to try to press a criminal charge on it, the recording itself would then become evidence and be publicly available, which doesn't seem too good for him either. Either way he loses.

[ as usual, disclaimer - I am not an attorney; if following my advice breaks something, you get to keep both pieces ]

 

[MNicolai]

It both illegal and generally inadmissible as evidence except under specific circumstances. A tenure committee could probably still act on it as Florida is an at-will state and wrongful termination doesn't generally exist beyond discrimination/whistle-blowing laws, but it would still make the university's lawyers furrow their brows.

Every jurisdiction will be different, but if it's as widespread as the student is claiming it shouldn't be hard to secure evidence without entering any legal grey areas.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Fair enough.

If *I* were a student, I'd record him regardless, but that's a different issue.

 

[TimMc]

A lecture hall has no expectation of privacy; neither does an auditorium stage. You are free to record. That doesn't make the recording admissible as evidence in a criminal matter, and perhaps not in a civil court matter... but as pointed out, a tenure or faculty investigation committee is not a court of law.

 

[Ben Stiegler]

Sadly this is not uncommon ... another recent situation in the upper Midwest at least led to the departure of said faculty member