Orange Coast College students returning from winter break were greeted with new signs in their classrooms, warning them not to record teachers unless they said it was OK.
The signs – prompted by secretly recorded video clips of an instructor’s anti-Trump comments that recently went viral – are not shy, making it clear that doing so “IS PROHIBITED.”
In our cell phone world, where particularly the young feel compelled to document every move on social media, is it so bad if a student just wants to record an instructor’s lesson as a study tool?
Or to show others when a teacher, in the student’s view, is getting too political?
Of the 20-plus colleges, universities and large school districts contacted across Southern California, all said students may not record in the classroom without the teacher’s permission.
That stance is backed by state law, with one exception: Instructors must permit students with a disability to record if that helps them learn. Any violator could be disciplined by the school.
“My view is that anyone can record any one of my classes if a student thinks it will help,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the UCI Law School and an expert in constitutional law. “Other faculty members feel differently.”
Indeed.
Nate Thomas, a film professor and president of the faculty union at Cal State Northridge, doesn’t want distractions or the privacy of anyone in the classroom invaded.
“When someone is recording you, the dynamic is different,” he said. “I bring in industry guests and some have big names. So I also ask students to not Tweet it out or put on social media what they say.”
Christopher Zotea is an 18-year-old student at Norco College in Riverside County and doesn’t record – at least not video.
“Of the seven teachers I’ve had so far, only one has said, ‘Don’t record me at all,’ ” he said. “I’ve personally never done it, because I’m probably not going to go back and listen to it.
“But I’ve taken photos of the board to record assignments and due dates. If I take pictures, I can look at it. If I write it down, I’ll forget it. But if it’s in my phone, and it’s in my gallery, I’ll see it.”
Discussion about students secretly recording in classrooms gained national attention in December, when the Orange Coast College instructor told a human sexuality class that the election of Donald Trump was “an act of terrorism.”
The school’s College Republicans posted the video clips, and instructor Olga Perez Stable Cox received an onslaught of hate mail that prompted her to temporarily leave her home.
At the Costa Mesa campus, administrators continue to consider the appropriateness of Cox’s comments, while also recently expanding their investigation from one to four students from the College Republicans and an adviser, said Shawn Steel, one of five attorneys representing them.
“The recording ban is a big problem not just as an accountability measure for teachers, but also as a tool for students,” Vincent Wetzel, a student at Orange Coast and president of the campus’s Republican club, said in an email. (He is not one of those being investigated).
“I’ve had a number of students that have voiced their frustration with the ban to me, because they say that they want to record lectures but are now unable to,” he said.
That hoopla is in stark contrast to an incident at UC Irvine a year earlier.
Peter Van Voorhis secretly videotaped his biology teacher who for nearly six minutes encouraged students to actively support gun control. Van Voorhis, now a UCI senior studying finance, said he “felt compelled” to record his teacher “to show the crazy stuff that happens in classrooms across America every day.”
“Nobody tried to reprimand me for my actions, at least to my face,” Van Voorhis said.
At UCLA, some professors, especially teaching in larger halls, have their lectures recorded so students can access them via Bruincast, which streams regularly scheduled undergraduate lectures, said Daniel Siegel, the school’s student body president.
Of course, it is more difficult to record if phones can’t even be seen – and high school districts take wide-ranging approaches as to whether they are even allowed in classrooms.
In Los Angeles Unified, students can bring phones to school but they must be turned off and stored in a locker, a backpack, a purse or other place where not visible. Even on school buses, they can be used only for emergencies.
At Santa Ana Unified, students must ask permission prior to recording anyone but cell phones certainly are allowed on campus. Deputy Superintendent David Haglund said the district aims to create “good digital citizens.”
“Teachers establish the rules for the classroom,” he said. “If your teacher says, ‘Put your phone in your backpack today,’ then that’s what you should do. On the other hand, if the teacher says, ‘I want you all to do research today,’ students should be able to use whatever technology they have access to.”
Steel, the attorney who represents the Orange Coast College Republicans and serves as a GOP California National Committeeman, said state law on classroom recordings is antiquated and, “in today’s modern age, probably unconstitutional. It could be challenged. …
“They’re using the cloak of law to continue their efforts to not let taxpayers know they have lunatics running the asylum,” said Steel, who added that he wants to see conservative students everywhere pulling out their cell phones to record teachers who engage in what he says is political indoctrination.
“There can’t be an expectation of privacy in a lecture hall with over 200 students,” he said.
Rebecca Lonergan, a USC law professor, sees it differently, saying state law is based not on privacy concerns but on educational ones.
“I can think of things I’ve said in a classroom where I’m having a discussion with them and defending things I don’t think are defensible but I want them to think critically, I want them to answer me back,” said the professor.
“Somebody can post a snippet and it’s not at all what I believe and it could subject me to cyber-bullying,” she said.
Back at Orange Coast College, where signs warn students to ask before recording, a few instructors are “feeling nervous,” said Rob Schneiderman, president of the union that represents the faculty.
So those instructors, since their fellow teacher became national news, have changed course on recording in the classroom.
They now ban it.
Secret recordings across the country
• In Cleveland, a 17-year-old student recorded his teacher complaining about him: “You going to walk these halls for four years because your mom wants you to get a degree, a damn Special Ed f—– degree at that.”
The teacher received a three-day suspension, and the student was threatened with disciplinary action.
• In North Carolina, an elementary school teacher was investigated after the mother of a 10-year-old boy, who complained that his teacher was verbally abusive, sent him to class with a recording device that captured the teacher out of control.
• In Ft. Pierce, Florida, a teacher was fired after an 11-year-old girl recorded her making comments like, “You’re the biggest kid in 5th grade, and you’re acting like the smallest one. … I wonder what your mom looks like.”
• In Kansas City, Kansas, students of Spanish teacher Andrew Ward so loved his enthusiastic entrance and greeting that they secretly recorded him each day for those few seconds to create an-end-of-the-year video gift last June.
The video was seen by hundreds of thousands of people, according to news accounts, which quoted the teacher saying: “I realized after watching this – that I need to buy more shirts.”
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