We Don't Pay You to Have an Opinion

For nine years, Steve Bohrer has helped keep the Emerson Wi-fi humming in the web of devices throughout the college—the fiber cable, the routers, the 1,300 connection points—all in-sync and working.

But the college wants him to shut up, he said.

Bohrer, an engineer and network administrator in Instructional Technology, has received a disciplinary letter for handing out leaflets to faculty and been formally warned not to email anyone outside his department without permission from his boss.

The restriction stems from emails he sent that he contends were polite, if pointed.  In one, he asked for more interaction with staff at a Zoom address by President Jay Bernhardt; in another, he wrote to Human Resources to inquire about staff work hours; in a third, he wrote to the college counsel asking if Bohrer and other staff members should take freebee gift cards from a vendor.

Bohrer, 60, says he is stunned by the pettiness of the charges and by the amount of resources the college spends on surveilling our own community members.

“So yeah, it does make me a little more cautious. Should I be keeping my head down?” he mused in a recent interview.  “On the other hand, I'm sure that's the intended effect, right? To chill protest.”

Bohrer has answers for the disciplinary allegations. He acknowledged he should have told his supervisor he was coming in late on the day he leafletted, but he had worked six hours the previous day—a holiday—and, as a salaried worker, receives  no comp time.

“I’m on campus all the damned time,” said Bohrer, who is only required to work in-person one day a week. “The one time they decide to look into [my hours] and investigate was for handing out leaflets. It's like, were the leaflets really that damaging to you?”

His email to the college counsel was at the direction of Human Resources, he contends. And his email to the president’s office about Bernhardt’s staff “forum”  politely questioned the title of what was basically a one-way address on Zoom.

Bohrer acknowledges he is probably seen as an irritant to the college administration. “I'm not afraid to speak back when I hear stuff that sounds wrong from above.”

Bohrer said he appreciates his job and loves his team at IT.  “I'm strongly in favor of Emerson. My protests are in the areas where I think we're falling short of what we say we're trying to do here.”

The administration’s moves are a “kick in the morale,” he added.  “I like to feel we're living our values, and seeing this petty, repressive crap, these police state techniques… Where did that come from? That's not what a small liberal college should be doing.Why are we working for higher ed instead of for some odious thing where we'd make a lot more money? It's because we value this kind of stuff.”