3/5/2013: It took almost two weeks to get a copy of Geller’s latest contract from Hubin’s PR office. Why? Presumably because it shows Berdahl tied Gottfredson’s hands by giving Randy a three year contract, at $200K a year. Even Bean only got two years. What sort of Interim President would do this to us, and to the incoming permanent President, knowing about Bean and Geller’s many problems? A bitter and angry one, who wanted to teach the uppity faculty a lesson.
…
2/22/2013: This is just a placeholder while I finish my due diligence. The Senate has a lot on its plate, not sure when this will come up. Past posts on Mr. Geller are here.
Google Maximilien de Robespierre.
Geller is way past his pull-date. His intrusion into UO Policy making has, for years, been both intrusive and destructive. I cannot imagine him getting a “pass” on a no-confidence vote. A message from the Senate might, indeed, speed his departure. Don’t worry about the Senate’s full plate — debate on this issue will be brief.
Post a complete list for me Old Man, or email it. I’m gonna do my homework on this. Plenty of time to make the motion at the 3/13 meeting, calling for a vote ASAP.
Obviously you’ve never heard what goes on at the ELT meetings. Or maybe that’s all you hear?
I suggest you remove your “hit list” from this site.
It’s here because it gets the attention of the UO central administration. It shows them that the faculty know where the problems are, and that we know that they know that we know they know where the problems are, and that we expect them to get to work addressing those problems. Unfortunately there are very few other ways to get that message across to them. It’s not like they invite us to hang with them on their bowl game junkets. They don’t even invite us to comment on the performance reviews they use to justify their raises. Although the new Senate policy for faculty evaluations of administrators may change that. In fact it already seems to have had an effect, I just got a survey for Coltrane’s review.
And if that starts to work, I’ll stop posting these lists.
Thank you for the explanation. The Senate was always there. We are all human. We all owe empathy and fairness. Dog recognizes that. Surely we can.
There is no empathy and fairness to be found on this blog, it’s all hay forks and torches here.
‘Off with their heads!’ (Ironic reference with no hint of literal physical violence.)
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Nice quote, but you gotta use your screen name, Ishmael.
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This site has really become the UO Hate Club, hasn’t it?
This blog would not so successful if it were built on hate. Funny thing… Love of justice and the institution fuel it.
Justice would be better served through the Senate.
Or the UO libel club? Where do you draw the line between free speech and defamatory speech? These pages are full of negative assertions that injure the reputation of the subjects, and in some cases it may be possible to prove that they are false. That would be defamation. Free speech is great, but hurtful false defamatory speech is illegal and should not be tolerated.
The NYT recently had an interesting report on employee protections for using the internet to complain about work and their bosses: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/technology/employers-social-media-policies-come-under-regulatory-scrutiny.html?pagewanted=all
But in assessing General Motors’s policy, the office wrote, “We found unlawful the instruction that ‘offensive, demeaning, abusive or inappropriate remarks are as out of place online as they are offline.’ ” It added, “This provision proscribes a broad spectrum of communications that would include protected criticisms of the employer’s labor policies or treatment of employees.” A G.M. official said the company has asked the board to reconsider.
In a ruling last September, the board also rejected as overly broad Costco’s blanket prohibition against employees’ posting things that “damage the company” or “any person’s reputation.” Costco declined to comment.
In its ruling the National Labor Relations Board said “workers have a right to discuss work conditions freely and without fear of retribution, whether the discussion takes place at the office or on Facebook.” This does not change the law on defamation, which is defined as assertion of fact that injures a subject and is proven to be false. So the question is: where is the line, and how many times has it been crossed in these pages?
Additionally, the NLRB rules only apply to private sector employees.
I’ve had vague threats of defamation suits from Frohnmayer, O’Fallon, Randy Geller and now I suppose Jim Bean. My understanding is that my main protections is Oregon’s anti-SLAPP legislation, which is designed to protect people’s First Amendment right to free speech in a public forum on matters of public importance, by discouraging defamation suits that shut down such free speech.
The logic is that the right to petition the government for redress of grievances is meaningless without the right to speak freely about those grievances.
The law allows an immediate stay of discovery after a defamation suit is filed, sets several very high bars for the plaintiff, and makes the plaintiff pay my legal fees unless all those bars are overcome.
I invite people to contact me or make comments identifying any factual errors in my posts, or in the comments from readers. I am happy to make retractions or publish corrections in the original posts.
So, what specific factual errors is the “libel club” poster referring to? Please let me know and I will address them.
Thanks, UO Matters
In 3 quickly located examples below, UOM asserts what the subjects know, want, ignored, or are hiding. It would be very difficult to establish the falsehood of these statements, but they are insulting nonetheless. These are not opinions or facts, they are derogatory assertions of intent. I don’t have time to document all the injurious slanderous statements at these pages, but whenever I check in the place is full of them.
“I wonder what President Gottfredson’s General Counsel Randy Geller is hiding. Besides the payments to NCAA lawyer Mike Glazier, and Frohnmayer’s colleague Sharon Rudnick, that is.”
Rudnick “wants to move the bargaining sessions off campus from Lillis to ORI to make it more difficult for faculty to attend the sessions about wages.”
“Expect nothing from Bean, who ignored faculty complaints about Frances Dyke, Charles Martinez, Russ Tomlin, and Don Harris for years. Bean knows that if UO starts holding administrators accountable he’s a short-timer himself.”
I would be embarrassed if I posted such insulting defamatory content. How exactly does it serve the “greater good”?
I’m no law professor, but I’m guessing it could be defamation to falsely state that someone has committed the crime of defamation. Such a statement would seem to be a falsifiable statement of fact, unlike your examples above.
As for serving the “greater good”, I think it’s enough to note that all 5 of the administrators you list have left the UO administration, or will soon.
The libel debate should be determined through legal channels; it is meaningless here. Sue him already.
UO-M is right. The Oregon law only protects union activity.
PECBA doesn’t protect “concerted activity” NLRB ruled on re Facebook.
Does UO-M’s libel concern collective bargaining? Is AFT-AAUP liable for it?
UO-M is right, you can just make stuff up all day long on a blog, sprinkle in some public records and see how many mice follow the piper.
I thought it was rats.
I’m still waiting for my public records DNA request to determine species…
No reflection on rats. Ben was an empathetic rat. Don’t know if rats turn on each other under stress.
Rats are wonderful pets. And it is a falsifiable fact that they are empathetic. See the Science article by Dechety (2012). Stop defaming rats on my blog, or the rats will start hiring lawyers.
Rats chuckle when tickled too.
What poisonous venom oozes from the green skin of this reptilian Uom.
Hi Jim. How’s the move going?
(typical room-temp IQ response from Mr. UOM)
I strongly suggest you beam me up.
People voice their displeasure with the underhanded administration that has systematically destroyed the harmony of the UO with their greedy self enrichment program at the cost of all others and you call it poisonous?
We know where the poison is and where it oozes from.
Be Liver, such propaganda is an inadequate and unethical substitute for fair process due each individual you deem implicated.
It seems for “no confidence” resolutions to be effective, they should be considered the nuclear option to be employed only in extreme situations. I don’t have all the facts, but both Geller and Espy, while perhaps better replaced, don’t seem to rise to this level of incompetence. If the senate uses votes of no confidence in attempts to rid us of the merely bad as opposed to the catastrophic failures, then I fear the potential effectiveness of such votes will be diminished.
What have they done to preserve your faith?
Espy was dealt a really bad hand. UOM said so. I’m no fan, believe me, but I agree with Anonymous above: If the Senate uses “no confidence” vote for everyone, it will be meaningless. BTW, when was Randy’s review? I missed it.