4.16 / Review Procedure for Alleged Violations of the Kansas Board of Regents' Social Media Policy

Effective: February 13, 2017

  1. Purpose

    The purpose of this policy is to outline the procedure that will be followed when a faculty member is alleged to have violated the Kansas Board of Regents' Social Media Policy.

  2. Procedure

    1. The following procedure shall be used to address the alleged improper use of social media as defined in the Kansas Board of Regents' Policy Manual Chapter II: Governance-State Universities, F. 6. b. Social Media Policy. The procedure will apply to any non-student employee in any constituent group (University support staff, faculty, or unclassified professionals), in a manner consistent with First Amendment Constitutional rights and academic freedom principles.

      1. The University President, or President's designee, identifies an incident that potentially violates the KBOR use of Social Media Policy.

      2. The decision to implement this review procedure is made by the President, or President's designee, in consultation with the University's General Counsel respecting constitutional rights and academic freedom principles.

      3. Once the President and the General Counsel have made the determination to proceed with a review, the University President or President's designee will:

        1. notify the employee in writing of the alleged violation of policy; and

        2. form an ad-hoc Committee of Peers to determine the severity of the alleged infraction and to make recommendations as to the resolution of the matter.

          The Committee of Peers will be composed of five members:

          1. three members appointed by the President of the constituent group of which the affected employee is a member;

          2. two members appointed by the Presidents of the other two constituent groups of which the affected employee is not a member; one from each group.

          Thus, for example, if the affected employee is a member of the faculty, then three faculty members and one university support staff plus one unclassified professional would be members of the committee.

          The constituent groups will determine the method for selection of potential members of the Committee of Peers. An employee may request replacement of any member due to conflict of interest.

      4. The University President, or designee, charges the committee to review the incident.

      5. Within thirty calendar days of receiving the charge, the committee will investigate the incident and make a written recommendation to the President or President's designee that includes:

        1. whether or not there has been a violation of the KBOR Social Media Policy; and

        2. a recommendation of what disciplinary action might be taken if a policy violation has occurred.

      6. The University President, or the President's designee, shall make the final determination regarding any disciplinary action. In these instances, the applicable procedure described in the WSU Policies & Procedure Manual shall be followed for administering disciplinary action. This procedure assumes that the committee's recommendation will generally be accepted, or modified only for compelling reasons.

    2. This procedure shall not preclude an employee from using a formal grievance procedure adopted by other University policies whenever they are applicable. Individuals assigned to the Committee of Peers are exempt from serving on any related grievance or termination committees.