Business Law

Harvard University Search of Deans’ E-mail a ‘Breach of Trust’ or Cyberbullying?

Tomorrow I will be boarding a red-eye flight to Boston to speak at prestigious Harvard University on the topic of cyber-bullying.  The term cyber-bullying can be defined as using any form of electronic communications to harass, torture, threaten, or humiliate another person.  In an unrelated, but ironic, headline I read in this mornings The New York Times, Harvard University officials are accused of secretly searching the e-mail accounts of 16 resident deans in response to leaked information about a student cheating scandal at the school.  Adjectives like “shocked and dismayed”, “bewildered”, “dishonorable” and  “breach of trust” were used by faculty members to describe how they felt upon learning that e-mail accounts were secretly searched.   

Generally, as a private institution, Harvard University may conduct searches of workplace computers and e-mail accounts without the consent or knowledge of the individuals whose accounts are the subject of the search.  However, Harvard faculty policy states that while the administration can search a Harvard faculty e-mail account as part of an internal investigation, it must notify the faculty member beforehand or soon after. In this case, the notification followed after about six months.  Is the notification of the search six months after-the-fact sufficient to be considered “soon” enough “after” the internal investigation?

In preparation for my presentation at Harvard on Wednesday, I cannot help but correlate the content of my discussion to whether the search of the computers, while legal, constituted a form of cyber-bullying by University officials.  A resident deans job function is to advise undergraduate students on a myriad of issues that may affect them while attending Harvard, but comes with no job security.  The resident dean is in a purgatory of fiduciary obligations between the University, who pays its salary, and the  undergraduate students, with whom they are to serve.  When a conflict arises between the two “masters,” which one supersedes the other?  Does the University not have an obligation to protect its brand/image to other stakeholders?  Is this conduct to search the accounts, while legal, unethical?  Should the students be advised that the resident deans are not their fiduciary representative?  If so, what is the purpose of the resident dean? 

The basis for the search is related to an alleged on-going scandal whereby approximately “70 students were forced to take a leave from Harvard for collaborating or plagiarizing on a take-home final exam in a government class last year.”  The leaked internal memo, to all the resident deans last fall, discussed how they should advise the students who stood accused of cheating.  To constitute whether the officials conduct would be considered cyber-bullying, the fact-finder would need to examine the extent to which the lack of job security and understanding of fiduciary obligations put the resident deans in a position where they were feeling threatened or harassed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.