The faculty-made website keepdoaneeducated.net has been taken down due to a copyright complaint.
The website was made in response to the list of 18 programs recommended for elimination during the prioritization process. Faculty members used the site to post letters in response to the recommendations along with information on how to help protest them. The website has since been accused of copyright infringement through the use of photos that belong to the university. However, faculty members involved with the site claim the photos were taken by themselves, not taken from Doane’s website.
Though the complaint was anonymously made, Doane’s Spokesperson Ryan Mueksch said Doane administration filed the complaint with the hosting company for the faculty website. “The administration submitted a request to the hosting site to take the site down and the hosting site agreed with Doane’s assessment, therefore removing the site,” Mueksch said.
Doane university gave a statement on the subject, saying “Doane views intellectual property as one of its most valuable assets. As such, Doane takes its name, trademarks, and copyrights seriously. The University will defend its name, rights, and assets when used without permission.”
According to Professor of Political Science Tim Hill, one of the original creators of the site, the complaint had no grounds. Doane administration, however, claimed otherwise.
“The owner of the website keepdoaneeducated.net did not receive permission from the university according to intellectual property laws, which require hosting companies to remove such content until permission is granted,” the statement said. According to multiple faculty members, Kristen Hetrick, the previous director of the Honors Program, took the photos for the website herself. Hetrick said she gave permission for the photos to be published on the website.
“I personally took the photos used on the Keep Doane Educated website on Oct. 7, 2020, a beautiful fall day that was one of my last on campus. I fully authorized their use on the website,” Hetrick said. “They are still on my phone if the anonymous complainant(s) or anyone else would like proof of that.”
The faculty website was taken down by the host site Wix.com after they received the complaint. However, according to Hill, the host site has since agreed to put the faculty site back up 10 days after. The website will be back up and running in November, the day after final decisions regarding prioritization cuts are made.
Hill did not believe that Doane administration had reasonable grounds to file the complaint and have the website removed. Hill mentioned that the timing of it all was no coincidence, saying Doane administration purposely had it taken down before final decisions were made.
“This is clearly a fight that is not being fought fair. It was created by people who were against those cuts,” Hill said. “We were not personally critical of any person in the administration. There was certainly nothing that was any kind of violation of copyright.”
The use of the photos taken by Hetrick for the website were originally a source of nostalgia, but are now upsetting to her because of how they are being used to further an agenda.
“These photos previously induced nostalgia for a campus where I spent some wonderful years,” Hetrick said. “It is incredibly upsetting to me that now, due to this attempt at censorship, they are just one more example of the university’s recent unsettling pattern of retribution towards dissenting faculty voices.”
Hill said the complaint may have been a purposeful attempt to silence the protests against prioritization.
“They are trying to silence us and that just isn’t okay,” Hill said.
