14 DAY TRIAL // The email messages of Harvard University deans have been read without their consent, reports say.
16 resident deans are under fire for possibly leaking info to the press about a cheating scandal at the Ivy League school. Their accounts have been accessed because they have been directly involved with the case.
They sit on Harvard’s Administrative Board, a member of which allegedly sent out an email to a student, mentioning confidential information about the case.
While the email somehow made its way to the Harvard Crimson and subsequently to international publications, nobody has come forward to admit to having sent it.
“Extraordinary circumstances such as legal proceedings and internal Harvard investigations” are needed to authorize the search, in accordance with school policy.
Boston.com details that telling the faculty about the inquiry is not a must if “circumstances make prior notification impossible.”
“Harvard College would take all necessary and appropriate actions under our procedures to safeguard the integrity of that process, which is designed to protect the rights of our students to privacy and due process,” dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Michael Smith, says in a statement.
“They don’t seem to think they’ve done anything wrong. [...] [I told them], if you want to repair this with the resident deans, it would make sense to talk about why you thought this was the right thing at the time, and apologize for not notifying us after the fact,” senior resident dean Sharon Howell argues.
“If reading the deans’ email is really OK by the book, why didn’t they just ask the deans who leaked the memo, threatening to read their email if no one came forward?” former dean Harry Lewis stresses. Lewis was part of the board that set up said privacy regulations.