U of A monitors faculty, students' social media posts about political events, 'for safety'

The University of Arizona monitors and saves posts made by students and faculty on social media about certain political events, including a pro-Palestinian walkout, internal emails show.

A UA spokesperson says the selective monitoring is done of events and social media discussion that might develop into “unsafe situations.”

The internal emails were obtained by the Arizona Daily Star from Aura Bogado, an investigative reporter. She received the documents from the UA through public records requests and posted her reporting about them on TikTok.

The emails show that last fall, the UA’s social media director continually downloaded and stored social media posts from student groups advertising a pro-Palestinian walkout. She sent the files to senior UA leaders including Police Chief Chris Olson and Vice President and Chief of Safety Steve Patterson.

Additionally, there was an incident in which a faculty member’s post on a personal social media account about the walkout was sent by the UA provost, or head of academics, to all deans and most faculty. There is not a formal or written policy for the monitoring of social media posts, UA spokesperson Mitch Zak told the Star in an interview Friday.

He said the university’s communications staff checks daily for any references to the university on social media. After that it is a judgment call on which references to download, save and forward to senior leaders and the UA’s Threat Assessment and Management Team because the chatter or events could pose safety issues to monitor, Zak said.

He said the culling decision is initially made by a junior level employee, the social media director, but that she would receive direction from a UA vice president before downloading, saving and forwarding.

“We listen for posts that include the university and planned campus events,” Zak said. “We focus on safety and therefore that could include rallies, marches or demonstrations.”

Other instances monitored in the last couple of years, Zak said, included posts about the politically conservative group Turning Point USA’s plans for a UA event.

The monitoring decisions are not made for ideological or political motivations, but demonstrations and other political events on all sides of the spectrum are often those that could become safety issues on campus, he said.

Student monitoring

The internal emails obtained by Bogado from the UA show that the director of social media in the university’s communications department repeatedly tracked and saved student groups’ pro-Palestinian social media posts last fall.

The Star is not using the director’s name because after Bogado’s video posts on TikTok about the employee’s role in the monitoring, the employee was subjected to harassment and threats from members of the public, Zak said.

In an email sent to senior leaders including Associate Vice President for External Communications Pam Scott, Patterson, Olson and Associate Dean of Students Chrissy Lieberman, the employee wrote that a pro-Palestinian walkout scheduled for Nov. 9, 2023 was “picked up” on Instagram by the Coalition of Black Students and Allies, a student group at the UA.

“The only positive news for us right now is that their account has been shadow-banned by Instagram, so the reach of their posts is really limited,” she wrote about the Black student group on Nov. 7, 2023.

In response, Olson, the UA Police Department chief, wrote: “Thank you.”

When an account is shadow-banned by Instagram that means its posts show up less often on users’ feeds.

Zak said the university is “concerned with any social media chatter that could raise the risk of an unsafe situation on campus.”

The reason the employee wrote that the shadow-banning of the Black student group was “positive” was because “there was a reduced risk of rhetoric that could be construed to create a more unsafe situation” being shared widely, he said.

In one email sent to Olson, the employee wrote that the United Campus Workers of Arizona union’s student Instagram page also posted the photo advertising the pro-Palestine walkout on the UA’s campus on Nov. 7, 2023, but that it had “incredibly minimal engagement.” The post received 95 likes and one comment.

Additionally, she found a TikTok from an account called “Arizona Rally for Palestine” promoting the walkout that also had “minimal engagement,” but she wrote to Olson that she chose to download it and add it to a Box folder for record keeping, as well.

Box is a platform similar to Dropbox that allows users to download and save content from the internet.

Zak did not say how long the downloaded posts stayed in a Box account but said they were eventually deleted. He said he does not know, however, what the UA’s Threat Assessment Management Team, under Patterson, does with the information after receiving it or if they keep it permanently.

The social media director wrote to Olson at the time, “As a reminder, you can find all the posts I’ve cataloged regarding this event in Box. I’ll continue to update you as needed if things change on social!”

She was also added to email threads with Patterson, Olson and other communications officials about the walkout and its route, so she could add that information to the university’s Box account.

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Zak told the Star that “consistent with the operations at many universities,” the UA does “monitor social media posts so that we can ensure awareness of events or activities, which include demonstrations, that could impact how we operate as a university.”

The university does not just monitor pro-Palestinian activities on campus, he emphasized. He said the university’s director of social media also monitored, downloaded and sent social media posts about an event hosted by conservative Turning Point USA to senior UA leadership.

Zak said the university is monitoring posts about this year’s commencement in a similar way.

When asked whether university employees were downloading and archiving social media posts about commencement into a Box file and sending it to senior leadership, Zak said he didn’t have “the answer to that question.”

Faculty monitoring

In early November of last year, a faculty member posted about the pro-Palestine walkout on their personal Facebook account. The account was private, multiple colleagues of the faculty member told the Star.

A screenshot of the walkout post was shared by an employee with Interim UA Provost Ron Marx, who then forwarded the image to all deans at the university with a message encouraging them to share the information with their colleges.

Marx did not crop out the faculty member’s name or photo when he sent the screenshot to all of the deans.

When Laura Hollengreen, the associate dean for academic affairs and associate director of the School of Architecture, followed Marx’s directive and forwarded the screenshot to her colleagues, she received an email from the faculty member asking how she had gotten the information.

“I don’t think we’ve met but I did notice that you are circulating a private post that I have made,” the faculty member wrote. “I know we are not connected via social media and as you might be aware, circulating a private post can place individual faculty at risk and is a violation of my privacy. In the future, I would ask that you use more care to protect faculty anonymity and safety.”

In response, Hollengreen offered her “sincerest apologies for anything inappropriate I may have done,” adding that it was “certainly not (her) intention to violate your privacy or to endanger anyone.”

Hollengreen wrote that she “received the screenshot through administrative channels.”

Emails obtained by the Star show that Jean McLain, the associate dean for faculty engagement in the College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences, also shared the screenshot, with the name of the faculty member attached, to the entire college.

In response, Katie Zeiders, a professor in the college, wrote to Marx concerned about the widespread circulation of the faculty member’s information.

“Please stop this email from being circulated immediately,” she implored Marx. “It includes a faculty member’s name on a private social media post. This places (them) at risk and is an invasion of (their) privacy.”

Marx responded to Zeiders that he would “try to do what I can.”

Zeiders, in response, told Marx that she hoped “an apology is also offered to this faculty and that (their) safety is considered.”

In response, Marx said he apologized to the faculty member.

Marx was not disciplined for the incident, according to UA spokesperson Zak.

“He apologized to the faculty member in question for sharing the post that included the individual’s name,” Zak said. “So that was the action that was taken.”

Marx then informed then-Senior UA Vice President, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer Brad Bohlander about the situation.

“I don’t think there is a lot you can do to stop the circulation at this point,” Bohlander responded to Marx. Instead, he said, his team would draft a formal message for Marx to send to deans and faculty broadly informing them about the walkout.

There was a brief debate on whether or not to include that the walkout was in support of Palestinians, which the senior leadership team ultimately decided to do.

“The university has a long history of embracing and protecting free speech and expression, and we encourage our students (and the broader community) to make their voices heard peacefully and civilly,” Marx wrote in his formal email to faculty, more than 24 hours after the screenshot he sent of the faculty member’s personal social media account had been circulated.