October 17, 2007

Salisbury U. President Apologizes for Facebook Photos

Plenty of students have been embarrassed by photos on the social-networking site Facebook, but university presidents have dodged that fate, until now.

Janet Dudley-Eshbach, president of Salisbury University, removed her Facebook profile on Monday after a reporter from the local WBOC-TV asked her about photographs from a family vacation to Mexico that had appeared on her personal page since February.

In one picture, Ms. Dudley-Eshbach is shown in her bathing suit, playfully waving a stick toward a Hispanic man who is hugging her daughter, Cara. The caption said, “I ended up having to beat off the Mexicans because they were constantly flirting with my daughter.”

Another picture showed a tapir, a mammal, with an arrow pointing to its sex organ. A caption called it the “animal with the world’s largest” genitalia.

In a statement, Ms. Dudley-Eshbach apologized for the photos, which she said she intended to be humorous.

“My understanding was that, with my privacy settings in Facebook, my page could be viewed only by those to whom I granted access,” she said.

Across the Chesapeake Bay, at Towson University, five sororities were placed on probation after photographs showing students drinking at a September campus event surfaced on Facebook, according to The Examiner, of Baltimore. —Don Troop

Comments

1. And we were worried about the students!

   — DLG    Oct 17, 03:55 PM    #

2. As my teenage kids would say…“thats too freaky!” A moment of indiscretion can last a lifetime.

   — Bruce    Oct 17, 04:09 PM    #

3. So she thought only those to whom she granted access could see this – apparently her nearest and dearest appreciate racist, crude humor, and that makes it okay?

   — neniaf    Oct 17, 04:09 PM    #

4. Oh geez, people, GET OVER IT ALREADY. Why are we not allowed to express our views freely? Academic freedom, indeed, unless you hurt some wimp’s feelings, of course.

   — Sol    Oct 17, 04:16 PM    #

5. I wasn’t worried about the students and I’m not worried about the faculty/administration. What I’m worried about is this country. We’re becoming a nation of dim-witted prudes, scared of our own shadows and contemptuous of our actual humanity. Facebook has only helped expose this wretched and hypocritical hypersensitivity.

   — BertW    Oct 17, 04:21 PM    #

6. May I remind everyone that Mexican is not a dirty word. And it is only racist to those who would find it so.

   — marci    Oct 17, 04:22 PM    #

7. To play Devil’s Advocate for a moment: at what point should we begin to worry about Big Brother Syndrome? I’d like to believe that even great men and women have occasionally succumbed to inappropriate humor. Whatever happened to “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write?” (The actual quotation from Voltaire.) Seems to me this is a more appropriate sentiment for higher education to voice than blanket condemnation.

   — barbara    Oct 17, 04:37 PM    #

8. I’m confused.

   Accurate description of scenario in photo = racism?

   — Confused    Oct 17, 04:41 PM    #

9. We shouldn’t care what anyone puts on Facebook. Period. Not only has it nothing to do with our lives, but free expression doesn’t exactly fell societies.

   — DLS    Oct 17, 04:56 PM    #

10. I am OK with university presidents displaying their true selves in any legal way they want. The only thing one may ask of them is not to pretend to be holier, smarter, or better than their faculty. In fact, one should be glad that the false aura of superiority they assume is shattered by the daily reports of their silliness, fraud, plagiarism, corruption, and other failings. Reduce their salaries to reasonable levels and they will actually apepar to be the average mortals that they really are, like the rest of us.

    — Steve    Oct 17, 04:58 PM    #

11. Well, the mighty have fallen again. I hope never to be one of them!

    There once was a president, Janet
    Who aspired to ape Animal Planet.
    She posted her pics
    of male organs and sticks
    But publicity forced her to can it.

    — Patricia DeWitt    Oct 17, 05:04 PM    #

12. They were in Mexico. But the term “Mexican” is racist? I wonder what they call themselves in that country that neighbors to the south of us?

    She forgets, obviously, that “friends” can copy those photos and captions and forward them. However, why should she have to worry about that. It’s simply off-color humor. Not racism, not sick perversity. The PC Police are running amok again.

    — Carlo    Oct 17, 05:05 PM    #

13. Dear Confused,
    Most conservatives use “Mexican” perjoratively, and many liberals have incorporated that thinking. It is much the same as the word “Yid.” In actuality, it means “Jew” in Yiddish. But the bullies in the New York ghettos used to taunt the FOB Jews by calling them “Yids”. The taunt became so intimidating that “Yids” themselves began to think it of a dirty word. It is only in the last decade that proud Jews have reclaimed the very proper and very beautiful term “Yid”.

    — marci    Oct 17, 05:09 PM    #

14. Posts 6 & 8 – I agree! The phrasing of the article is odd, slanting it towards her jumping to an assumption that this “Hispanic” man is “Mexican.” If she’s in Mexico, it seems logical to use the term Mexican to describe the people you meet! As to Tapirs – honestly – so what?!

    — kate    Oct 17, 05:16 PM    #

15. Neniaf

    There was nothing racist about the comment. Whom would you expect to find in Mexico – Pakistanis?

    Sol,
    You forget, academic freedom is for teachiong faculty only. Administrators are not allowed to have either a sense of humor or an opinion on any damn thing.

    — Yeah, lighten up    Oct 17, 05:19 PM    #

16. OK, just change “Mexicans” to “locals” and I guess someone should really start a “People Against the Sexual Exploitation of Tapirs” facebook group.

    — Frankie    Oct 17, 05:52 PM    #

17. What are citizens of Mexico called? I thought they were Mexicans.

    — Not Conservative, But Confused    Oct 17, 06:54 PM    #

18. 18. As a person who suppose to represent the academy, shame on you. The students deserve better a this university. Quit you have know honor.

    — lauer    Oct 17, 10:22 PM    #

19. I’d be more worried if Janet had to “beat off the ‘tapirs’ because they were constantly flirting with (her) daughter.”

    — gleason    Oct 17, 11:41 PM    #

20. It is unfortunate that once you hit a level where you are in the public eye that you have to watch everything you do. Yet on the other hand once you are at that level in the education system you should exemplify what you university should be teaching .ie, ( non-racist remarks)

    — TSP    Oct 19, 11:35 AM    #

21. We have truly lost the freedom our forefathers fought for.

    — hacker    Oct 19, 02:47 PM    #

22. #

    It is unfortunate that once you hit a level where you are in the public eye that you have to watch everything you do. Yet on the other hand once you are at that level in the education system you should exemplify what you university should be teaching .ie, ( non-racist remarks)

    — TSP Oct 19, 11:35 AM #

    What office were you running for, when you wrote that? Because you just said “p” and “~p”; in other words, nothing!

    — Nicholas Stix    Nov 8, 04:53 PM    #

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