Chicago State Tells Faculty Not to Talk to Press

Chicago State University has told its faculty members that they can't talk to the press without permission from university officials, and that permission may be required for various other forms of communication, including writing opinion pieces and using social media, The Chicago Tribune reported. An e-mail message Sabrina Land, the university's director of marketing and communications, sent to faculty members said that the new rules would assure that communications were "strategically deployed" in a way that "safeguards the reputation, work product and ultimately, the students" of the university. Cary Nelson, national president of the American Association of University Professors, told the Tribune that the new policy "is an obscenity and absurdity and is not tolerable."