I just received a disturbing email from someone on the main Texas A&M campus in College Station, that they received from their supervisor, alerting them to a policy change:
The University is amending its policy on responsible computing use to include wording about the inappropriate use of any verbiage in an e-mail or signature line other than that needed/required for University purposes. What this means is that University employees will be in violation of the changed University rule if they have personal phrases in their e-mails/signatures. This could include links to personal web sites, scriptures, quotes for the day, etc. Let’s do our part to comply and review ourselves before this comes out. Please check your e-mail signatures and remove any phrases, wording, etc from your signatures if you have any that is not directly related to University business.
I inquired about this issue and discovered that this policy change has been discussed in high-level meetings, but has not been implemented...yet. Of special note is the direct reference to scripture. The University's computing use policy already addresses harassment and other related issues, so this proposed change would basically serve to define scripture as harassment. It is, I believe, a knee-jerk response to baseless complaints from people who want to keep other people from putting Bible verses in their email signatures.
Then there's the idea of banning "personal phrases" from "emails/signatures." This goes far beyond the "scripture in the sig" issue. What, exactly, is a "personal phrase" anyway? Is there some way for me to eliminate my personality from my emails? Would this policy be effective notice from the University that "anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law"? Am I automatically under arrest by the State of Texas when I become an employee of Texas A&M University?
In a logical world, any email-signature-related complaints would be handled on a case-by-case basis by HR. The proposed policy, as I understand it, smacks not only of censorship, but the fact that "scripture" is explicitly banned also indicates a clear anti-Christian bigotry. This would open up a huge can of worms for the University--and frankly, I'd probably be willing to help open it. I've already had a run-in with a TAMU VP over a conservative quote in my email signature; I backed off in that instance, but this would be pushing it too far. In true "world-class university" fashion, TAMU seems to be all about "freedom of speech" when it comes to promoting deviant sexual behaviors as healthy lifestyles, or spouting anti-American leftist propaganda, but State forbid we allow employees to put "personal phrases" or--horror of horrors--scripture, in their email!
Posted by jon at February 23, 2005 10:58 PM