Fresno State faculty OKs new surveillance policy
Fresno Bee 2/13/07
The Academic Senate at California State University, Fresno, approved a new campus surveillance policy Monday with those two major provisions. The policy now goes to university President John Welty, who will get the final say.
The Academic Senate -- a group of 68 professors who help formulate university policy -- has debated the surveillance plan for several months. They argued about constitutionally protected freedoms of privacy and speech versus what it takes for police to ensure security on a campus of 24,000 students, faculty and staff.
Professor Jacinta Amaral, who abstained from the vote, said after Monday's session: "I am opposed to any covert surveillance by campus police in a classroom or faculty office. In the United States, we have other mechanisms to deal with criminal activity."
The policy states that Fresno State police must explain in writing to the university president that undercover officers are investigating a crime and that "less intrusive means" are not an option. But Amaral, who teaches in the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department, said she worries the policy could be used to improperly investigate unpopular or controversial political ideas.
Business Professor James Henson voted for the new policy, but he was disappointed in its position on temporary cameras. In a statement circulated to the Senate, Henson said the faculty group would be abusing "the privilege of academic freedom and privacy rights" and possibly protecting criminal actions by forbidding temporary cameras in classrooms and offices.
After Monday's meeting, Henson said: "My concern is that it may come back one day to haunt us big time because a criminal act has occurred that could have been prevented by simple video surveillance."
But many professors said cameras threaten academic freedom.
The policy says cameras could be temporarily installed in teaching or research laboratories if police explain why they're needed and top university officials approve. Cameras in labs would detect students who damage equipment, some professors say.
Work on the new surveillance policy began after plainclothes officers from the university police and the Fresno County Sheriff's Department attended a November 2004 lecture by a controversial animal rights activist. In May 2005, Welty put tight restrictions on undercover surveillance by university police, and he later named a campus task force that proposed the policy the Academic Senate debated and approved Monday.