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Comment by Consultant32452 | Hacker News Reader

This is from the article:

>"It is important to note that the university did not deny the First Amendment rights or academic freedom of professors Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin," the school said in an email to NPR. "Rather, the university denied requests of these full-time employees to undertake outside paid work that is adverse to the university's interests as a state of Florida institution."

The operative phrase there is "outside paid work."

I believe you interpreted NPR's article exactly the way NPR intended you to interpret it. That is to say, you were supposed to read it and walk away misinformed due to the framing.

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"Lots of folks asking what if we do the work pro bono? Our compensation was not given as a reason in the original disapproval from UF. That is new language the university added in its PR statement"

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1454526638578880516

Does the policy that requires them to ask permission to do something ever apply to volunteer work under any circumstances? Or is this something they only have to do when getting paid?

I have no direct knowledge of the policy but the comment implies that it wouldn't matter.

The comment was given with in a context of a policy that required the professors to ask permission to perform some work. If the policy only applies to paid work then that is the context and makes all the difference.

Conflict of interest policy typically cover both paid and unpaid work since either could be a conflict of interest.

From the University of Florida: "Conflict of Commitment: occurs when a University Employee engages in an Outside Activity, either paid or unpaid, that could interfere with their professional obligations to the University." https://policy.ufl.edu/policy/conflicts-of-commitment-and-co...

The image in the linked twitter suggests that Michael McDonald officially asked if he could testify pro bono and was denied by Gray Wimsett, Assistant Vice President of Conflicts of Interest.

So Gray Wimsett at least claims it is against the policy to volunteer to do the work in this case.

That was the response to the initial (compensated) request, however it seems to clearly indicate that the compensation is not the issue.

> The operative phrase there is "outside paid work."

> you interpreted NPR's article exactly the way NPR intended you to interpret it.

This take seems born out of bias, one that comes with prebuilt animosity toward NPR while assuming the university admin's stated reason is the sole and actual reason for denying testimony.

It's notable that the university could defuse the situation by clarifying what are acceptable avenues for the professors to testify - and then doesn't do that.

Asking a clarifying question is something a journalist would do.

I agree and agree the article is short on questions that the journalist should have brought up, even if they couldn't answer it (eg: names of the specific admins involved, how they got those positions and who they are beholden to).

It’s possible for UF to have a nuanced position and still be in the wrong.

Do you believe the purpose of the article was to inform you of the nuances on both sides and let you make an informed judgement for yourself?

> Do you believe the purpose of the article was to inform you of the nuances on both sides and let you make an informed judgement for yourself?

I hope not. We tried that with journalism and wound up with endless views from nowhere. It was barely better than when journalists parrot Gov/Biz/LEO press releases w/o vetting the content (which is done all the time).

edit: I'll append to note that NPR's 2008 election coverage set a gold standard for equanimity that I haven't seen repeated (inc by NPR). They gave conservatives a better shake than RW news orgs did.

Everyone is biased. The key to better journalism is competency.

The key to worse journalism is having an arms-race reaction to bias and building a news org on that reaction - which is to say building it out of bias.

The only thing that bothers me is pretending to not be activists. If you wear your activism loud and proud then the more the merrier.

It's an insignificant detail compared to competency and it seems tedious to let it bother you. Past that, a declaration would be counterproductive. No matter how it's worded, some substantive journalism will be seen to be in disharmony. Why invite that trouble for no meaningful benefit?

One example of how it's unimportant: A motto like "fair and balanced" kind of pretends that one particular network wasn't founded on activism but it was. More importantly, it's the activism that those viewers want.

Perhaps the motto brings the viewers some comfort by reinforcing a view that the only world worth having is the one they visualize. Why take that away based on some arbitrary calculation?

> I believe you interpreted NPR's article exactly the way NPR intended you to interpret it. That is to say, you were supposed to read it and walk away misinformed due to the framing.

What you quoted "It is important to note that the university did not deny the First Amendment rights or academic freedom of professors..." comes from University of Florida and as far as I can tell is not an airtight argument. No valid conflict of interest is presented in the article for for example.

If typically has allowed such outside work, if there was not a conflict on a governmental issue, then the University of Florida as a governmental institution is performing 'self dealing', in this case by putting their thumb on the scale of public discourse, by limiting/restricting the speech of the professors.

Part of why we have the first amendment is to limit the ability of the government to effect the course of public discourse and the University of Florida is definitely doing that.

“You can work here and say things that will harm us, but you can’t accept payment to say things that will harm us.” Feels like a very reasonable position to me.

That is the way it works for a private institution, but not for government institutions. It is supposed to a safety net to prevent the government from consolidating power by putting their thumb on the scale of public discourse.

That may be so, but the article gives the impression that the professors were forbidden from testifying, presumably under threat of losing their jobs.

If they were simply not allowed to take payment for that testimony, the article and title should reflect that, regardless if such a policy is also wrong.

And I would have liked for the article to elaborate more on this barring. What would happen if they testified anyway, if they did or did not get paid for it, etc.. It is after all the central issue of the article, and that they leave it so vague is either incompetence or deception.

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