The University of Illinois says its faculty should use common sense when delving into politics. That’s after some professors criticized an ethics policy banning state workers from expressing political views while on the job.
U of I spokesperson Tom Hardy says that policy clearly applies to professors.
HARDY: We are public employees. We are state employees. There’s a state ethics law that covers everybody in the university. It doesn’t differentiate between a university employee and the employee of some other kind of state agency.
U of I professor Nick Burbules says the rules are fair. But he says universities should be more flexible when it comes to free speech.