

Harvard Search of E-mail Stuns Its Faculty Members - coloneltcb
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/us/harvard-e-mail-search-stuns-faculty-members.html?pagewanted=all

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CurtMonash
I was last at Harvard in 1981, but even as a teaching fellow for one course I
was faculty. My ID said "Faculty", I could eat at the Faculty Club, etc. Ditto
when I was a Post-Doctoral/Research Fellow there. (Some of my fondest post-doc
memories are of sharing a lunch table with guys like Tom Schelling.)

I'm guessing that "Resident Deans" are like what we used to call "Senior
Tutors". Whether or not that's the case, it seems pretty clear to me that
Harvard tradition would call for them to be treated with the same courtesies
(other) faculty are. Indeed, by a large margin, they probably have MORE
influence on undergraduate students' academic success than any one professor
or teaching fellow generally does.

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austenallred
The question, in my mind, isn't about whether or not it was OK for Harvard to
search their mail server, but rather why they would need to do it.

First of all, does Harvard attempt to punish the person who leaked the
controversy to the media? And if nearly half of the 279 students were
suspected to be cheating and were going to be asked to withdraw, would they
really expect the issue to remain hush-hush?

~~~
ghshephard
The issue wasn't people leaking the controversy to the media, it was that A
resident dean forwarded private email from the administration giving guidance
on how to advise athletics students on how to withdraw gracefully.

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jessaustin
I would have hoped that this policy would also have been exempt from this
pervasive mania for secrecy. The Harvard community in general is well-served
to know: 1) that there is a different policy for athletes than for other
students 2) that at least some of the "guilty" students were convinced by
trusted Harvard faculty (possibly including coaches?) to take a "plea bargain"
rather than inconvenience the Ad Board with making a proper determination of
guilt 3) that the resident deans, who are privy to many of the secret actions
of the administration, don't trust the administration, and they have good
reason not to trust it.

Maybe we should have known these things already? Then what harm has resulted
from letting the public in general in on it?

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hexis
I bet it came as a big surprise to the Harvard faculty that the same asshole
stuff everybody else's boss does is the sort of thing their boss does, too.

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thinkcomp
The faculty shouldn't be stunned. Harvard has been reading the e-mail of
students for a long time. Why should the faculty be any different?

I'm fairly certain they read my e-mail in 2003 (which I wrote about in my
book). Judith Kidd, then a member of the administration, happened to know that
I'd hired lawyers in a meeting before I had ever told her. While it's remotely
possible that she learned of this from another source, I think it's highly
unlikely.

The reason why Harvard (or any university) is not your average employer is
that academic institutions, and particularly those with big brand names, are
supposed to be beacons of free speech in this country. Professors should be
able to discuss or investigate pretty much any [legal] topic they want to
without fear of censorship or other repercussions. The notion that the
administration could spy on faculty (or students for that matter) without
notice could have potential chilling effects that are actually fairly serious.

But am I surprised? Not at all. The Harvard Administrative Board has been and
continues to be an abomination. Despite all of the scholarship on the subjects
at the law school, due process and transparency remain foreign concepts to
these people.

~~~
doctorpangloss
> Despite all of the scholarship on the subjects at the law school, due
> process and transparency remain foreign concepts to these people.

I have to agree with Aaron here: The worst part of this story is that Dean
Michael Smith, who authorized the search, teaches a privacy class, CS 105.

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obowersa
Reading the article, what surprises me the most is that they had to search the
mail in the first place.

For the information they were after, any relatively primitive mail tracking
system would suffice. To be fair, even most outbound spam/virus scanners would
log the level of info being looked for.

I can't help but feel as if it's a bit of an overreaction. A very targeted
search was done on the mail headers to try and track down a leak. It seems
fairly routine work. The lack of notification is a big issue (soon after the
event) but even so.

To see the reaction you'd assume that the administrators were going through
each persons mailbox reading every single mail.

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dmor
This seems really silly to me. In large institutions it is very common for
this to happen, and the email accounts and all the content in them belongs to
Harvard. This is the case with pretty much any employer. A clever faculty
member looking to leak to the press should a) not use their Harvard email
address or b) better yet, pick up the phone to provide the tip.

~~~
rm999
I think that misses the point, and the article discusses why. It's not about
what Harvard _could_ do; it's about standard protocol for treating faculty,
and it's about trust. In the academic world faculty are usually treated with
incredible amounts of respect, and several people interviewed in the article
see Harvard's actions as a breach of that standard.

This guy puts it well:

>Harry R. Lewis, a professor and former dean of Harvard College, said, “People
are just bewildered at this point, because it was so out of keeping with the
way we’ve done things at Harvard.”

~~~
dmor
I don't think it is disrespectful to search their emails though, Harvard is
fundamentally an institution funded by donors. This scandal majorly damage the
reputation of the institution and was embarrassing to high profile donors and
alumni. Protecting that is obviously worth more to Harvard then whether or not
professors feel they have academic freedom. The only problem with all of this
now is that the public also knows the emails were searched. Seems Harvard
can't keep any secrets anymore.

~~~
michaelt

      I don't think it is disrespectful to search their emails 
      though, Harvard is fundamentally an institution funded 
      by donors.
    

In my mind searching someone's e-mail is like searching their pockets as they
leave the office, or asking them to take a supervised drugs test: It's
technically legal and some employers do it.

On the other hand, the people who work for me are trusted, respected
professionals. I'd understand them taking umbrage if I asked them to turn out
their pockets, or to piss into a cup, or if I started reading their e-mail.

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lwhalen
I personally think a better headline would be "Harvard faculty shocked and
awed by Real World practices and policies intruding on Ivory Tower" :-) I
wonder how many of these faculty are aware that the US Gov't is already
reading their email, regardless of the provider, and further how many of them
are aware that the problem is mostly-fixable with end-to-end email encryption
a-la PGP/GnuPG?

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pdovy
Does the university have an established policy for email retention and access
to that data? It seems unlikely that they wouldn't, but I don't see it
mentioned anywhere. It's never a good idea to rely on goodwill to prevent
access to sensitive data - if it's there, a need arises and it's not illegal,
it's eventually going to happen.

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jessaustin
Update from the offending deans:
<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/content/deans-communications>

_Précis_ : secrecy is literally the most important thing ever.

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hnriot
Read the terms of your employment... This is common practice in any
organization. Work email is the property of the company or organization.

~~~
cbs
I find attitudes like this fascinating. If they were within their legal right
to do this, that explains why the resident deans are _complaining_ instead of
_suing_.

When did the fact something is permitted become reason to shut down or
marginalize discussion on if it _should_ happen and/or be permitted?

~~~
josephagoss
Some people are incapable of understanding that some rule out there are wrong
and should be questioned. They cannot actually understand how people do this
questioning. I guess they sleep easy at night knowing all is right with the
world, because those lawyers are on our side.

~~~
hnriot
Skipping over the pathetic passive aggressive tone, this isn't about some
repressed part of society, this is simply a employer/employee relationship.

There's nothing wrong with an employer doing this to protect the organziation.
This is exactly what is happening, it's an investigastion into misconduct, not
some big civil liberties case.

When you send email using you work account you should not expect that email to
have the same privacy as your own email might.

I am perfectly capable of understanding, and the university are in the right,
they have every right to investigate what happened.

~~~
jessaustin
Skipping over the pathetic whinging about tone, this is not simply an
employer/employee relationship.

The President and Fellows were charged in 1650 with "the advancement of all
good literature, arts, and sciences". That can be boiled down to: _veritas_.
There is nothing to support selfish deans avoiding public scrutiny of their
poor decisions.

