A few days after administrators from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs made idiots of themselves by telling students that tweeting, linking, posting or otherwise traceably conversing about WikiLeaks would harm their future career prospects, Columbia has suddenly come to its senses and realized that their earlier career advice made them look….really, really bad.
So they’ve walked back their original POV and become more embracing of….oh…free speech and that sort of thing.
Wired has the story. Here are some clips:
Last week, the SIPA Office of Career Services sent an e-mail to students saying that an alumnus who works at the U.S. State Department had recommended that current students not tweet or post links to WikiLeaks, which is in the process of releasing 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables — many of them classified — because doing so could hurt their career prospects in government service.
“Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government,” the Office of Career Services wrote.
Now, SIPA Dean John H. Coatsworth has clarified the school’s policy and issued a ringing endorsement of free speech and academic freedom.
“Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution,” Coatsworth wrote in an e-mail to the SIPA community Monday morning (full e-mail message below). “Thus, SIPA’s position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences.”
SIPA Professor Gary Sick, the prominent Middle East expert who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan, went even further in repudiating the memo.
“If anyone is a master’s student in international relations and they haven’t heard of WikiLeaks and gone looking for the documents that relate to their area of study, then they don’t deserve to be a graduate student in international relations,” Sick told Wired.com in an interview.
Now if Attorney General Eric Holder, who appears to have gone actively insane on the topic, will have a similar come to Jesus the 1st Amendment moment.
I dunno, Celeste – this is a tricky one. About more than the First Amendment and whether WikiLeaks’ guy has a 1st Amendment “right” to say anything he wants. He has endangered lives and, per tonight’s NBC news report, potentially the health and safety of Americans and allies around the world on many levels. (And these leaks ONLY embarrass Americans vis-a-vis the rest of the world – we’ve heard allegations from former associates that was by political design, other claims that it’s only because American “security” was the most vulnerable…)
However, the ultimate blame rests with the government itself for making it so easy for a “hacker” and/or his allegedly low-level security clearance informants, to gain this level of access. I think Holder may partly be right, but also be over-reacting to the embarrassment of what his government allowed, hence exposing how vulnerable it is/ we all are. To ANYONE, who could be far more malicious, even.
As for the Columbia thing: totally agreed. If the info is “out there” what journalism student would turn a blind eye, let alone be punished for discussing it, when everyone else already is anyway? To warn they may become tainted is absurd. Whether it SHOULD be “out there” is another matter.