UM Physical Plant Thursday night. Photo: Katie Williamson
Physical Plant Department Director Ashton Pearson, who emailed all the department’s employees a letter concerning social media posts, said he felt obligated to send the letter after being told of his employee’s behavior and that he consulted an administrator and an athletics official before sending it.
The letter was emailed following the Ole Miss football victory over LSU on Oct. 19. The letter from Pearson chastised an unnamed physical plant employee who had posted support for LSU using social media while working on the sidelines at the game. The letter said that while the university cannot dictate which teams employees may support, if employees cannot support Ole Miss, they should “remain neutral and without comment.”
“Under no circumstances do I, or any member of my staff, monitor another employee’s social media accounts or emails,” Pearson said in an email this week to The Daily Mississippian, in answer to questions. “However, when posts made by one of my staff are brought to my attention, I am obligated to address them.”
Pearson said that the concern was not employee allegiance, but a personnel issue concerning individual job performance.
“This was simply a case of an employee not giving their undivided attention to a job for which they were hired to do,” Pearson said. “The employee was observed by an athletics administration official posting to a social media site while actively engaged in performing their role in support of an athletic event.”
Danny Blanton, director of public relations at the university, said the problem is not with making social media posts.
“This issue is not about social media,” Blanton said. “It is about employee conduct while they are on the clock and gameday responsibilities.”
Before he sent the letter, Pearson said he deliberated with an administrator and the athletics department.
“After discussing this with the athletics official and a university administrator, it seemed necessary to write a memo advising my staff that, while on the clock, they are expected to perform their assigned duties and not engaging in distracting activities,” Pearson said. “Also, when someone is paid to perform a job, it is a reasonable expectation to suggest that they remain cognizant of their environment when representing their employer. As the memo clearly stated, the university will never dictate which sporting teams a person can support or cheer for.”
The letter has stirred controversy on campus and received attention from national media. The Daily Mississippian contacted a number of physical plant employees but they declined to comment.
Although many people have been outspoken about the incident, John Neff, director of the university’s Center for Civil War Research and an associate professor of history, has been particularly vocal, articulating several concerns that he has regarding the letter.
“My first concern about the letter is that Pearson claims the support of administration,” Neff said. “He does not name who that administrator is, and he does not give us any sense of it. If I were in administration, I think I would be concerned that whatever ideas are being talked about are being attributed to them.”
Neff said the impacts of regulating individual expression are far-reaching.
“Pearson is legitimately able as a supervisor to try and control employee behavior while on the clock, and if the letter had been written to say, ‘Don’t do this on the job,’ we’d be done,” Neff said. “There just isn’t any room for any administrator anywhere to have that kind of influence or control over their employees. Their control extends to the job being done and does not extend to what you think, how you feel, who you cheer for or what you are interested in supporting.”
Blanton said the issue is limited to the physical plant and its employees and supports Pearson’s position of authority over his department.
“What needs to be emphasized is that these are internal guidelines issued by the director of a department to staff,” Blanton said. “I have internal guidelines for my staff, and while it does not make them university policy, they indicate how I want my employees to conduct themselves to represent The University of Mississippi’s Public Relations department.”
Blanton said the administration is not implicated in this issue.
“It is not that the university administration is leveraging anything on this, as this only applies to physical plant employees who are on the clock on gamedays,” Blanton said. “It simply does not apply to anyone else.”
— Adam Ganucheau and Grant Beebe
