Controversial social media posts by student-athletes causing colleges to take action

Are institutions leaving the blocks early in asking for password access?

The publication of bizarre and inappropriate Twitter and Facebook posts by a select few college scholarship student-athletes around the U.S. is creating turmoil and backlash from the public as well as mainstream and online media.  Some posts are alleged to have been so controversial as to cast a negative light on the institutions where the athletes have been recruited to play sports.  And it is that link, and the presumed responsibility of the student-athletes to their colleges, which has pushed some institutions to take unprecedented actions.  Case in point?  The University of North Carolina is now requiring that all their athletes provide the passwords to their social media sites to enable staffers to keep track of the athletes’ postings.  According to columnist Bob Sullivan, writing for the online site The Red Tape Chronicles, UNC recently revised its handbook to read, “Each team must identify at least one coach or administrator who is responsible for having access to and regularly monitoring the content of team members’ social networking sites and postings,” it reads. “The athletics department also reserves the right to have other staff members monitor athletes’ posts.”  It’s a fringe issue now, but it will doubtlessly gain traction and could land in a courtroom at some point in the near future.  We don’t have a dog in this hunt, but we nevertheless find it an intriguing issue as we ask the Question of the Day: Should colleges be allowed to require their student-athletes to provide their athletic department with their social media passwords for the purpose of overseeing their posts?