You know, I decided quite some time ago to stay out of LiveJournal crapfests, because I really don't need extra crap in my life. However, when people hit hard at one of the few things I truly believe in, maintaining that policy is more difficult. I'm finding myself grossly offended by some of the people over at academics_anon. Specifically, I'm talking about this thread, which was followed up by this thread. If you don't know me well enough to guess where I stand on this issue, my comment in the original thread is here.

Maybe I should agree with those who are vehemently defending their "right" to display their students' intellectual property on the Internet without permission. And hey, why don't therapists and lawyers post notes and extended quotes from their meetings with their clients, because what it's all about is freedom of speech. I have a LiveJournal account, so I can post whatever the fuck I want, no matter whose privacy it violates. Anyone who tells me otherwise is a humorless asshole. In fact, I think instructors should regularly make fun of their students publicly, because if teachers think it's crap, then their job is to ridicule it to an audience of hundreds—maybe even thousands! They're not going to be able to help those students with their writing because, as we know, all students who turn in work we don't like are lazy, unmotivated, stupid, and totally incapable of improvement. Given the fact that there's no real teaching opportunity in such situations, let's destroy them. It's OK, because we won't say their names. There's no chance that one of the 450,000 people with LiveJournal accounts will be my one of my students.

Even if people decide to insist that there's no ethical problem with posting student essays, you'd think they might have some practical concerns. Do these people really want potential employers to have access to posts that contradict any claim the job applicant might make about believing in a student-centered approach to pedagogy? As part of one of my jobs, I interview graduate students who want to work in our writing center. If I knew that one of the applicants had posted a student's essay on the Internet so that others could tear it apart, never in a million fucking years would I hire that applicant.

I'm sure I'm not the only one.