In August 2019, Kimberly Diei enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Tennessee at Memphis, where she’s studying to earn her doctorate from the College of Pharmacy by 2023.
But an anonymous complaint about Diei’s Twitter and Instagram posts put those hopes in jeopardy. In September 2019, someone reported her social media activity to the pharmacy college’s Professional Conduct Committee. The committee reprimanded Diei for violating the college’s professional standards.
A year later, after receiving yet another anonymous complaint, the committee investigated Diei’s online content again. Within four days, board members voted to expel her from the pharmacy program, deeming her social media posts too “sexual,” “crude,” or “vulgar.”
Alumna sues school, alleges it hid critical comments on social media ktvz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ktvz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
River North Photography/Getty Images
Proposed legislation in Iowa would require the state’s Board of Regents to survey all employees of the three universities it oversees as to their political party affiliations, disaggregating the data by job classification but not by individual. The regents would deliver the information to state lawmakers by the end of the calendar year.
The bill doesn’t provide an explanation, and Jim Carlin, the Republican state senator who introduced it, didn’t respond to a request for comment. But the meaning is clear: by disaggregating employee groups, Iowa’s General Assembly could measure the political beliefs of the faculty.
Reuters
Threats to free speech on public college campuses are increasingly being driven more by students than administrators, a panel of experts who spoke at a virtual Baylor University event said Wednesday.
The world s largest Baptist university hosted a webinar titled “Free Speech on Campus: Is it in Danger?” featuring conservative evangelical writer and former attorney David French, openly gay scholar and author Jonathan Rauch and other advocates for free speech.
The event was held in coordination with the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University and the Initiative on Faith & Public Life at the American Enterprise Institute.
Notable conservative evangelical writer and former attorney David French, one of the experts on the panel, said he believed there was a recent shift from free speech threats originating from administrators to the threats originating from students.
Greg Gruebel, a staff attorney with
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, for further details on their First Amendment case and the next steps in their legal action.
In conversation with
theGrio, Diei shared more on her path to the university and her passion behind the program.
“What led me to the pharmacy program was the realization that it was the conversion point between science and chemicals and being able to directly relate to patients and patient care,” Diei shared. “I found UTHSC, and it was affordable and conveniently located. It’s actually the only school that I applied to because I’m confident in my capabilities. I was admitted. So I was not deemed unprofessional enough not to gain admittance, but now all of a sudden, there’s an issue.”