UC San Diego is investigating a professor who created a cell phone GPS tool to help migrants locate resources like water caches and safety beacons as they attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
Wikimedia photo by Toksave
Voice of San Diego reports that the university is looking into how visual arts professor Ricardo Dominguez used $5,000 in research funding on the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a project that generated a media frenzy when it was announced last fall.
They're also looking into Dominguez's role in a virtual sit-in that impacted UC President Mark Yudof's Web site during the March 4 Day of Action, Dominguez said.
Dominguez told the Voice of San Diego and the San Diego Union-Tribune he's being targeted for questioning the university's operations. He's also worried the investigations may have a chilling effect of academic freedom at the university.
The Transborder Immigrant Tool created a media frenzy and political heat when it was announced last fall. Critics called it an illegal immigration app. They decried it as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money, and potentially a crime.
Republican Reps. Duncan D. Hunter, Brian Bilbray and Darrell Issa wrote a letter to UCSD asking the chancellor to review the project's funding, which they described as a means for people to violate federal law.
The researchers – Dominguez and Micha Cardenas, Brett Stalbaum and the University of Michigan’s Amy Sara Carroll – declined to talk to Fox News for its story:
'As a collective, we have decided that we would prefer not to be interviewed by Fox News,' Carroll wrote in an e-mail. “Our aesthetic diverges so much from your network's that we question the possibility of genuine dialogue in an exchange with you.'
A Web site for the Bits.Atoms.Neurons.Genes Lab, or "B.A.N.G. Lab," where Dominguez serves as director, says that the university included his Transborder Immigrant Tool in his professional reviews over the years, "all of which have gone successfully."
Asked about the investigations, UCSD officials yesterday issued the following statement:
Like all great public research universities, UC San Diego is home to a diverse faculty with a wide range of interests and points of view. The university is built upon the academic freedom of its faculty members to direct their areas of research and inquiry. As a platform for innovative thought that may challenge the status quo, the university does not take positions on the political implications of its researchers’ work, relying instead on the marketplace of ideas to resolve conflicts or disputes over the merits of that work.
University of California policies protect the academic freedom of our faculty within the confines of the law and the Faculty Code of Conduct. Each campus of the University provides training regarding legal responsibilities of our employees, and has established processes by which complaints regarding allegations of misuse or illegal activity are reviewed to ensure adherence to state and federal law. The University does not endorse or support the violation of any law or University policy, takes seriously its role as a public trust, and conducts prompt review of allegations of violations of law. With respect to the confidentiality and protection of our faculty and staff the University does not comment on personnel matters.
Comments
via Twitter