This is all very fishy. The school is not being clear about what was in the recordings that prompted the firing of the professor.
Inside Higher Ed reports:
UNC Fires Professor They Secretly RecordedThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will not renew the contract of a professor whose classes they recorded without his permission, university media relations director Beth Lutz confirmed.Larry Chavis has taught economics at the university’s Kenan-Flagler Business School on a yearly contract since 2006. In April, he was notified that his classes had been secretly recorded by a camera in his lecture hall, and that footage of those lessons had been used in a professional review. The review was prompted by “reports concerning class content and conduct … over the past few months,” associate dean Christian Lundblad wrote in a letter to Chavis.“Notice is not required to record classes, and we do record classes without notice in response to concerns raised by students,” Lundblad’s letter said.Lutz declined to comment on the university’s reasons for letting Chavis’s contract lapse, including whether the recordings played any role in the decision. Chavis told Inside Higher Ed that the letter he received informing him of his termination offered no rationale.When Chavis asked university officials to explain in more detail the reasons he was under review and why he’d been secretly recorded, Lundblad told him they would meet to discuss it. That meeting was never scheduled.Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, has been an outspoken advocate for Indigenous and LGBTQ+ rights in ways that have sometimes pitted him against university officials, he told Inside Higher Ed in April.Chavis said that whatever the reason for his contract lapse, he worries that the “concerning class content” which Lundblad said prompted the classroom recordings was related to his “strong support of LGBTQ rights.” Chavis said the office of Equal Opportunity Compliance has launched an investigation into the recordings, and that he’s talked to investigators.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY