HutchCC Social Media Policy Is Contradictory

The death of podcast sensation Charlie Kirk sent the nation into a social media frenzy. 

Kirk was known for exercising his constitutional right of freedom of speech daily, from his podcast episodes to debating students on college campuses. 

Ironically, according to ABC News, dozens across the country have been fired from their jobs for comments made on their personal social media accounts. 

Hutchinson Community College weighed in by sending out an email to staff regarding the college’s social media policies. 

In the email directed to staff, HutchCC President Tricia Paramore, wrote, “While the First Amendment provides important protections for personal expression, those protections are not absolute. Speech that incites violence, constitutes a true threat, disrupts the College’s ability to fulfill its mission, or interferes with the College’s regular operations may fall outside of those protections.”

With Kansas being an at-will employment state, the college has every right to punish staff members for things posted on their social media accounts, though that doesn’t make it ethical. Free speech is not defined clearly in the constitution, leaving protected and offensive speech left to one person’s opinion. What could be considered offensive to one person may not be to another. 

 “​​When an individual’s social media account identifies them as affiliated with the College, that individual’s comments, posts, or other online activity may connect back to HutchCC, which could have professional implications for the individual, and may be viewed as reflective of the College as a whole,” Paramore wrote in the email. 

If we live in a world where we are scared to share our opinions out of fear of losing our jobs, at what point does freedom of speech cease to exist? With the amount of staff members that work on the HutchCC campus, it’s not a fair statement that one’s comments can reflect the college as a whole. If members of the Hutchinson community can freely express their beliefs and their opinions, HutchCC faculty, then staff members, should be able to practice their First Amendment rights in their free time. While private entities have every right to fire someone for saying something that doesn’t align with their values, public entities like the college can’t constitute what employees post and say online. 

“As a public institution, HutchCC takes seriously both the freedoms and responsibilities that come with open expression. HutchCC plays a critical role in fostering the ability of the community to deliberate in an effective and responsible manner,” said Paramore at the end of her email. 

I applaud Paramore’s professionalism, but I find the policy ironic in that it tells staff members that the college takes freedom of expression seriously, but yet several HutchCC staff members declined to comment on the email. If the college truly cared about freedom of speech and expression, these staff members wouldn’t have declined to comment.

Lizzie Rush is a Grand Island, Neb., sophomore studying journalism and the Collegian’s Editor In Chief. Follow her on Instagram.

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