FAU’s big win over Tracy leaves big question hanging
Fortunately, James Tracy gave Florida Atlantic University a reason to fire him. But what if he hadn’t? What if Tracy had posted goofy, offensive conspiracy theories on his blog while complying with rules about outside activity by professors? Under that scenario, it would have been tough, if not impossible, to fire Tracy.
G. Joseph Curley represented FAU in Tracy’s unsuccessful lawsuit seeking reinstatement. In an interview, Curley said firing a professor at a public university like FAU can be especially hard because of First Amendment issues that don’t apply at private colleges. Public or private, however, academic freedom does apply.
In his lawsuit, Tracy cited the collective bargaining agreement between FAU and the faculty union. Among other things, the agreement allows professors to “present and discuss academic subjects, freely and forthrightly, without fear of censorship” and to “exercise constitutional rights without institutional censorship and discipline.”
When FAU notified Tracy of his firing in December 2015, however, the letter never referenced the content of his Memory Hole blog. Vice Provost Diane Alperin said Tracy was losing his job for failing to file Report of Outside Activity or Professional Involvement forms for the previous three years.
Tracy’s attorneys tried to persuade a federal jury that FAU had fired Tracy over content. They failed, so jurors never had to consider the question. Tracy claimed that the Sandy Hook School massacre and other real events were government conspiracies. He harassed the parents of a 6-year-old Sandy Hook victim, though Curley said jurors also “never got to that.”
Because the case didn’t turn on content, it left unanswered the question of what a university can do when a professor ignores the truth. Though Tracy claimed that he separated his outside work from his teaching, a former student wrote in The Palm Beach Post that Tracy promoted false conspiracy theories in the classroom.
Tracy’s case is part of the wider issue of “fake news,” social media manipulation and censorship within government. Almost every day, there’s a new development.
Facebook and Twitter are hiring staffers and implementing new procedures to stop the posting and dissemination of false stories. That includes scrutiny of “bots,” which are automated online accounts programs.
Bots act as kindling to get false stories blazing. After the 2016 election, Mother Jones reported, roughly 2,000 bots that had promoted Donald Trump went dark. They returned this year to promote far-right candidates in France and Germany.
As one researcher wrote for the Brookings Institution, such bots “mislead, exploit and manipulate social media discourse with rumors, spam, malware, misinformation, slander or just even noise.” What began as a lie, another analyst wrote, can become “credible information” to those willing to believe it.
The accurate definition of “fake news” is not material with which one disagrees. “Fake news” is a demonstrably false story or theory that people come to believe. Examples: Barack Obama was born in Kenya; was an inside job by George W. Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Anyone can find alleged news organizations and websites to confirm his or her assumptions. This creates a dangerous suspicion of government policies that challenge such assumptions.
In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refused demands to block airline flights from western Africa during the Ebola outbreak. The CDC was right. The U.S. had no domestic Ebola cases, and health officials contained the outbreak.
The Trump administration, however, has banned the use of seven terms in its budget requests. Those terms include “fetus,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “vulnerable” and, most ominously, “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
As with Tracy’s Sandy Hook hokum, this is an attempt to dismiss reality, like Gov. Rick Scott’s ban on use of the term “climate change.” A sort of similar, self-censorship happens when college students refuse to read supposedly offensive books and call campuses “safe spaces.”
Whether on campus or in Tallahassee and Washington, though, debate must begin with facts. To keep a professor from going rogue, Curley said, universities might ask for reviews of the syllabus for a course. Even that might not have stopped Tracy. His conspiracy theories, Curley said, “exploded” after Sandy Hook.
Curley is certain that Tracy will appeal. For now, though, James Tracy is not a professor at Florida Atlantic University. And that’s a fact.
Email Randy Schultz: randy@bocamag.com