The College Fix

The Guardian reports on a troubling trend in higher ed:

It monitors email and social media accounts, uses thousands of surveillance cameras to track behavior and movement, is funded by billions of dollars from the federal government, and has been called “the most authoritarian institution in America“.

The National Security Agency? Nope. It’s your average college or university.

Earlier this year, when Harvard University violated school policy by secretly searching deans’ email accounts, the world glimpsed the intrusive measures one school took to monitor online activity of its staff. “We needed to act to protect our students,” said then-dean of Harvard College Evelynn Hammonds, who authorized the search in response to leaked information about a high-profile cheating scandal at the Ivy League institution.

But at schools across the country, administrators use similarly invasive surveillance tools to monitor everything from students’ off-campus behavior to their online speech. University lawyers and administrators claim such surveillance programs are necessary to “protect” their stakeholders. But in reality, these actions are often just heavy-handed strategies colleges use to control their public image – at students’ expense…

Read the full story here.

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