To: steve harris who wrote (505820 ) 9/1/2012 3:34:07 PM From: FJB 7 Recommendations Respond to The Ohio State University Professor Wants Obama Sold In Classroom Published: Saturday, September 01, 2012, 9:05 AM By Plain Dealer guest columnist The Plain Dealer http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/09/campaigning_in_college_classes.html Excerpt: Recently a memorandum was sent by Professor Brian McHale to all instructors in the English Department at Ohio State University. The memorandum states that McHale, a distinguished professor of humanities, had "been in touch with a couple of organizers for the Obama campaign, who have asked me to pass along to all of you a request for access to your classes" in order to "make a pitch to your students about registering to vote." It continues, "If you were willing, the volunteers could also take a couple of extra minutes to see whether they could interest any of your students in volunteering for the Obama campaign themselves." This is a blatant violation of Ohio State University rules , which require the university's teachers to "differentiate carefully between official activities as teachers and personal activities as citizens, and to act accordingly." The University's Guidelines Regarding Political Activity by Employees of the University state: "As an employee of the university, it is inappropriate to either participate in political activities or solicit participation of others in political activities, either during normal business hours or at any time when using university assets." It seems most unlikely that Professor McHale is the only person in the Ohio public university system who was approached by Obama campaign organizers. In 2008, there was a controversy when Obama operatives induced the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to offer students course credit for working for the Obama campaign. Apparently, the Obama campaign is trying once again to turn public universities into partisan political brigades.
