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Inappropriate Use of Resources
The SL Tribune blog is talking about another “inappropriate use” of BYU resources for political purposes:
Ed Snow, director of development for BYU’s Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, sent an email to various people, including others at BYU, last week with an attached picture of 64-year-old potential candidate Fred Thompson and his wife who is 25 years his younger. The subject line was, “Fred Thompson’s trophy wife.”
“From the attachment, you can see that Fred Thompson and his wife Jeri (25 years his junior) may not wear well on many conservatives,” Snow said in the e-mail.
“When making their final decision before entering the voting booth, I think many conservatives will in their minds compare this attached picture with a mental picture of Mitt Romney with his lovely wife of 38 years, their five handsome sons, five beautiful [daughters]-in-law, and darling grandchildren. I hope so.”From Tribune Blogs — Out of Context: The Tribune’s political writers’ blog
Referenced Mon Jun 25 2007 18:54:28 GMT-0600 (MDT)
Does anyone else see a difference between an associate dean sending a note to a school maintained alumni mailing list that directly solicits support for a candidate and someone sending a note to some friends from their BYU email account? I imagine that in every election since email was invented, BYU faculty and staff have sent email messages to each other and others outside the university, from their BYU accounts, about political candidates. No one cared until there as a Mormon in the race. Now, such actions are “inappropriate.”
Posted by windley on June 25, 2007 07:08 PM
Comments
Phil,
Probably an over reaction by the Trib. However, given this and other incidents in the past, BYU faculty would be well advised to use a bit more discretion.
Posted by: Tom Grover at June 25, 2007 08:44 PM
For this type of correspondence, a person can have another account. It's not that hard to create one. Using one's institution's account--especially when that institution is church-related--to fire off political diatribes is not very intelligent.
Posted by: Frank Staheli at June 26, 2007 01:27 PM
How is this even an issue? BYU is a private institution. There are no laws against a person working at a private university sending political mail. It is up to BYU to decide if this is inappropriate behavior.
If the employee worked at City Hall or the University of Utah it would be an election law violation, but at BYU it is a non issue.
Posted by: Ben Mathews at November 14, 2007 09:51 AM
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