Blogging your way to unemployment

Here's a story about an adjunct professor who was not asked back to work at Southern Methodist University after it was discovered she was blogging. Scroll down to read the comments, especially the one from "Professor Wideass," a tenured faculty member at SMU who transcribed one of the Phantom Professor's posts.

FRIDAY, MARCH 04, 2005Wide load Professor Widdeas had what she called her “Jerry Maguire” moment at the departmental faculty meeting yesterday. She’s the newest tenure-tracker, fresh from a mediocre Midwestern university, with a Ph.D. in something no one cares about. She recently was named a “rising academic star” by some obscure journal. That made the head of our department do backflips over such a “prestigious honor.” (Meanwhile, the writing awards I occasionally get are never mentioned by the boss or featured on the “Wall of Honor” in the hallway. …. Wideass is a well paid full-timer with a secure future at the university and all the health benefits her plaque-laden arteries will ever need. We adjuncts are delighted to have discovered she is widely despised by the undergrads. (One of the student aides slipped me a copy of Wideass’ student evaluations — one girl wrote seven pages about all the things she hated about her.) She’s a slob and a loudmouth who preaches to students instead of teaching them. Because she can’t shut up, her classes frequently run overtime, leaving the students to creep sheepishly into our classes with apologies, sometimes 20 minutes late.(The Phantom Prof, 2005)

I'm guessing few of her colleagues are sorry to see her go.

Elaine Liner took down the blog for a time and has been selectively reposting some entries, so the "Wideass" comments are nowhere to be found. But Jim Hu found a repost that had been sanitized.

The university has denied that Liner was not asked back because of her blog. I don't think this is a free speech issue. No one can stop Liner from badmouthing her colleagues (well, maybe a judge could in a libel case), but I don't think any employer should have to pay her to do so.

And it's not an academic freedom issue either since adjuncts pretty much have no such job protections (the life of an adjunct is indeed not that much better than the life of a serf) and the comings and goings of Ashley and Professor Wideass are not exactly a field of study.

But it's interesting. What do you think?

Via Terry Teachout and Erin O'Connor.