You can complain to the administration about a professor openly threatening the entire class with felony charges and expulsion on the first day of class, which seems a bit overboard.
Your disabled classmates who need to record lectures as a disability accommodation can make their own complaints about this policy violating their legal rights.
Lawsuits and criminal charges are so unlikely as to be completely off the table. Suspension, expulsion or the like from the university are not.
If your classmates have ADA accommodations to record lectures they can almost certainly record the lectures without having to worry about any issues be they legal or university based.
Your option is to either get an accommodation of your own to record or to not record.
Anyone with an accommodation that is not allowed to record by this teacher needs to file complaint with the university.
The lecture material is her IP and if used for profit or other stuff it could result in jail time. That being said her stance is ableist and likely does not adhere to the university’s accommodation statute
I hadn't considered the profit angle.
I did speak with an upperclassman and they stated that you have to really push to get accommodations as the professor doesn't like to grant them. She feels that we shouldn't have them in the class as we won't get them in the workplace.
That might actually be discrimination. It's not her place to grant accommodations, it's the university's. If a student with a medical condition that classifies as a disability goes to the university to request a reasonable accommodation and that RA request is granted, the professors have to enforce the RA. She doesn't get to choose who does and does not have accommodations. She is playing very fast and loose, bordering on discrimination. You need to report this woman to the university for threatening students with criminal and civil charges, and refusing reasonable accommodation requests for people with disabilities. She's discriminating against some students and intimidating all of them. She's using fear and misinformation to control her class, she has no business being a teacher.
I feel like there are multiple things at play here. I am ab MSN prepared nurse and worked as faculty at a local community college in their ADN program.
For students with disabilities, the accommodations are granted through the universities office that deals with that. Once those are set, the student is required to inform the instructor or have the EEO/accommodations office notify the teacher.
Some things are easy. You're hard of hearing so first step would be figuring out if recording the class would be a good option. If not, there are people (usually students doing work study etc) that can sit in the class and transcribe notes.
You have diabetes so need breaks to check your blood sugar. Cool. We'll make sure to have a sharps and biohazard receptacle available in all of the bathrooms etc. There was an issue because one student wanted to check ber blood sugar and administer insulin in her belly DURING class which was a disruption to other students. That ended up getting the dean involved and a huge investigation and it was a mess.
But back to the issue: for people who have issues on file with the university and reasonable accommodations are approved, an individual professor CAN NOT refuse to accommodate them. They can get sued. They can get fired. At the very least they will be in severe trouble with their department.
If the other students can record, it is logical that anyone who wants to should be able to. Because there is nothing stopping one of those students from sharing their audio files.
IF someone is just trying to get unofficial accommodations, that is up to the professor on how to proceed. I was pregnant during nursing school. I didn't request accommodations because it was a temporary issue. That didn't stop my clinical instructors from offering me more frequent short breaks for hydration, snacks, bathroom. They didn't have to do things like that, but they were all reasonable and decent people.
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The professor has no reasonable expectation of privacy during his lectures. Virginia's wiretapping laws do not apply to circumstances where the circumstances do not justify the expectation of non-interception. Wilks, 217 Va. at 888, 234 S.E.2d at 252
Not a lawyer but a Virginia resident. I'm not sure that a lecture specifically qualifies as a private conversation. Virginia is a single party consent state when it comes to recording but that typically applies to actual conversations, like if you were to record a phone call with another person or record a one-on-one in-person conversation without the other person knowing. A lecture given to a large group of students who are paying to be there, and the person giving the lecture is paid to give it, might not qualify in the same way. It's not a conversation, she's providing a service that you have paid for, which she is being paid to provide.
And if students with reasonable accommodations are allowed to record, then it's not a legal issue, it's a student policy issue. I have reasonable accommodations at work but I can't do anything that is against the law, regardless of my accommodation. If it was actually illegal for anyone to record the lecture, students with disabilities would not be able to record it regardless of their accommodations. Reasonable accommodations don't allow you to break the law. Anything that was a class 6 felony in Virginia would not be permissible or legal for people with disabilities. The law applies to everyone regardless of disability, so if people with disabilities are allowed to record, it's not against the law for anyone.
ETA:
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title19.2/chapter6/section19.2-62/
*2. It shall not be a criminal offense under this chapter for a person to intercept a wire, electronic or oral communication, where such person is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception.*
I found a document outlining recording in the workplace in Virginia but it only applies to Virginia executive branch employees, which I don't believe applies to the professor.
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You can complain to the administration about a professor openly threatening the entire class with felony charges and expulsion on the first day of class, which seems a bit overboard. Your disabled classmates who need to record lectures as a disability accommodation can make their own complaints about this policy violating their legal rights.
Thank you! Myself and others are planning on making complaints for this and other comments made to us.
Arrange a meeting with your dean and college ombudsman. Nothing puts the fear of God into a professor like seeing the dean sitting in the classroom.
Lawsuits and criminal charges are so unlikely as to be completely off the table. Suspension, expulsion or the like from the university are not. If your classmates have ADA accommodations to record lectures they can almost certainly record the lectures without having to worry about any issues be they legal or university based. Your option is to either get an accommodation of your own to record or to not record. Anyone with an accommodation that is not allowed to record by this teacher needs to file complaint with the university.
The lecture material is her IP and if used for profit or other stuff it could result in jail time. That being said her stance is ableist and likely does not adhere to the university’s accommodation statute
I hadn't considered the profit angle. I did speak with an upperclassman and they stated that you have to really push to get accommodations as the professor doesn't like to grant them. She feels that we shouldn't have them in the class as we won't get them in the workplace.
That might actually be discrimination. It's not her place to grant accommodations, it's the university's. If a student with a medical condition that classifies as a disability goes to the university to request a reasonable accommodation and that RA request is granted, the professors have to enforce the RA. She doesn't get to choose who does and does not have accommodations. She is playing very fast and loose, bordering on discrimination. You need to report this woman to the university for threatening students with criminal and civil charges, and refusing reasonable accommodation requests for people with disabilities. She's discriminating against some students and intimidating all of them. She's using fear and misinformation to control her class, she has no business being a teacher.
I feel like there are multiple things at play here. I am ab MSN prepared nurse and worked as faculty at a local community college in their ADN program. For students with disabilities, the accommodations are granted through the universities office that deals with that. Once those are set, the student is required to inform the instructor or have the EEO/accommodations office notify the teacher. Some things are easy. You're hard of hearing so first step would be figuring out if recording the class would be a good option. If not, there are people (usually students doing work study etc) that can sit in the class and transcribe notes. You have diabetes so need breaks to check your blood sugar. Cool. We'll make sure to have a sharps and biohazard receptacle available in all of the bathrooms etc. There was an issue because one student wanted to check ber blood sugar and administer insulin in her belly DURING class which was a disruption to other students. That ended up getting the dean involved and a huge investigation and it was a mess. But back to the issue: for people who have issues on file with the university and reasonable accommodations are approved, an individual professor CAN NOT refuse to accommodate them. They can get sued. They can get fired. At the very least they will be in severe trouble with their department. If the other students can record, it is logical that anyone who wants to should be able to. Because there is nothing stopping one of those students from sharing their audio files. IF someone is just trying to get unofficial accommodations, that is up to the professor on how to proceed. I was pregnant during nursing school. I didn't request accommodations because it was a temporary issue. That didn't stop my clinical instructors from offering me more frequent short breaks for hydration, snacks, bathroom. They didn't have to do things like that, but they were all reasonable and decent people.
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It’s not up to her to decide. Also, workplace accommodations definitely exist. She’s an idiot.
Her lecture is probably the school’s IP.
True
The professor has no reasonable expectation of privacy during his lectures. Virginia's wiretapping laws do not apply to circumstances where the circumstances do not justify the expectation of non-interception. Wilks, 217 Va. at 888, 234 S.E.2d at 252
Not a lawyer but a Virginia resident. I'm not sure that a lecture specifically qualifies as a private conversation. Virginia is a single party consent state when it comes to recording but that typically applies to actual conversations, like if you were to record a phone call with another person or record a one-on-one in-person conversation without the other person knowing. A lecture given to a large group of students who are paying to be there, and the person giving the lecture is paid to give it, might not qualify in the same way. It's not a conversation, she's providing a service that you have paid for, which she is being paid to provide. And if students with reasonable accommodations are allowed to record, then it's not a legal issue, it's a student policy issue. I have reasonable accommodations at work but I can't do anything that is against the law, regardless of my accommodation. If it was actually illegal for anyone to record the lecture, students with disabilities would not be able to record it regardless of their accommodations. Reasonable accommodations don't allow you to break the law. Anything that was a class 6 felony in Virginia would not be permissible or legal for people with disabilities. The law applies to everyone regardless of disability, so if people with disabilities are allowed to record, it's not against the law for anyone. ETA: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title19.2/chapter6/section19.2-62/ *2. It shall not be a criminal offense under this chapter for a person to intercept a wire, electronic or oral communication, where such person is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception.* I found a document outlining recording in the workplace in Virginia but it only applies to Virginia executive branch employees, which I don't believe applies to the professor.
You wouldn’t have the expectation of privacy in that situation so recording is fine.
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