Inside Higher Ed: Button controversy continues
The dispute over political buttons is not over at the University of Illinois. A memo from the university’s ethics office last month suggested that professors were barred by state regulations from wearing political buttons, among other activities. Responding to furious faculty members, who said their rights had been trampled, President B. Joseph White said that they could wear buttons. But White’s clarification said that professors could wear buttons only “provided that employees at that time are neither on duty nor in the workplace of the university.” On Wednesday, a committee of the Urbana-Champaign chapter of the American Association of University Professors wrote to White arguing that such limits were inappropriate and might be unconstitutional. The letter cited Supreme Court rulings on the free speech rights of public school employees and questioned what harm would come from a faculty member wearing a button to a departmental meeting or around campus.
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