What Does Your Tuition Pay For: UTSA Edition

Blog / June 18, 2008

I take a lot of time to find out exactly where my excessive tuition and fees is being spent and have found some pretty absurd things…but this one takes the cake.

Dallas Blog Reports:

An attempt to terminate a tenured professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio is raising questions about whether professors’ free speech rights extends to pornography, especially when it is accessed on a government-owned computer.

The San Antonio Express-News, reports that, “professor Ronald Ayers was fired last year for reviewing pornography on his work computer, sparked by a complaint from a graduate student who said she overheard sexual noises coming from Ayer’s office.”

However, a faculty tribunal overturned the decision last month, saying Ayers acted with poor judgment but should not be terminated. The case will proceed to the University of Texas board of regents, which could support the tribunal’s decision, overturn it, or kick it back to the tribunal. Pending the outcome of the case, Ayers is on administrative leave with pay.

UTSA is my former school and this Professor is being paid to take a break while we go through the red tape to determine if his grotesque behavior at his office (whose bills are paid for by my fellow Roadrunners and I) is illegal or not.

What does UTSA say?:

Under a legal technicality, Ayers did nothing illegal, but David Gabler, a university spokesman, argues a professor should not be allowed to surf pornography on a work computer.

And that’s today’s edition of what does your tuition pay for.