The employees of my university discovered that one of their very few remaining benefits will be cut. Many workers were really counting on the benefit and this development is a disaster for them.
But when people started exchanging emails on the subject, the administration told them they weren’t allowed to discuss politics on university email. No political party or politician was named in the debate. People simply shared personal stories about how the destruction of the benefit will impact them and their children. Yet somehow, this is considered “political.”
I’m disgusted.
Clarissa's Blog 
It is certainly political in the original Greek sense of the term. It isn’t partisan since it doesn’t mention any politicians or political parties. But, it is certainly political in that it deals with an issue of vital importance to the polis.
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And so it follows that we shouldn’t even discuss the copious amounts of snow we unexpectedly got over the weekend. 🙂 Our polis is barely managing to deal.
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If these were mass emails to all the faculty and staff or something, I could see where the administration would get nervous about that, because it’s directly critical of the administration’s decision to cut benefits. Calling it political is basically just the shorthand for saying that it’s a highly charged issue. But perhaps it’s better to discuss it over email instead of on the comment threads of Inside Higher Ed or The Chronicle of Higher Education, which I anticipate it could end up if it’s a really big deal. Internal politicking is better than public politicking for the administration, perhaps. It sounds like if the administration is giving a gag order regarding email correspondence, they would really be in a tizzy about wide open publicity on the matter.
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We have some good legal scholars at our university and they have already made the administration back down from this unreasonable attempt to censor our expression.
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Message from the President of the University of Illinois:
“Dear colleagues:
In his inaugural budget address today, Gov. Bruce Rauner recommended a 31.5 percent fiscal 2016 budget reduction for higher education – a proposal that, if enacted, would cut general revenue funding (GRF) for the University of Illinois by nearly $209 million.
It is important to note that this is the first step in the legislative budget process and we will work with the governor and members of the General Assembly to make what we believe is a strong case to support the University programs that help lift our state.
Our overarching goals are to sustain our academic quality and the value of University degrees; retain the faculty and staff who are the core of our excellence and our ability to recruit the world’s best; preserve our ability to conduct pioneering research that fosters innovation, economic growth and serves the needs of the citizens of our state and nation; and continue delivering critical services such as health care. A reduction in the appropriation at the magnitude proposed will certainly impact our core missions.
At the same time, reality dictates that we immediately begin preparing for the impact if the legislature ultimately approves a large-scale reduction in funding. We will work with our Board of Trustees, campus leadership, and our faculty and staff to look deeply at all that we do and make the difficult programmatic and organizational decisions that would be required.
As an example, in our pursuit of new and innovative solutions to the coming fiscal challenges, we have contracted with a private vendor to replace all public campus benches with “pay and sit” benches in order to create a new revenue stream.”
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“As an example, in our pursuit of new and innovative solutions to the coming fiscal challenges, we have contracted with a private vendor to replace all public campus benches with “pay and sit” benches in order to create a new revenue stream.”
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