"As faculty members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we support support free speech and diversity of opinion, as has been our tradition. Such freedom requires responsible behavior..."

"... and in this respect we are deeply dismayed with the actions Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab has taken toward students and faculty on Twitter in recent weeks to discourage them from coming here. While claiming to stand for academic freedom, she has in fact damaged that principle and our institution with inaccurate statements and misrepresentations. We stand with our fellow faculty, staff, and students who have devoted themselves to maintaining and building on our university’s extraordinary and distinguished record of teaching, research, and service to the people of Wisconsin and beyond."

That's the University Committee Statement — dated today, signed by Beth Meyerand (chair), Dorothy Farrar-Edwards, Thomas Broman, Amy Wendt, Ruth Litovsky — reacting to what we were just talking about this morning in the post titled "UW professor under fire for tweeting at incoming freshmen."

The most interesting word in the statement is "actions" — "we are deeply dismayed with the actions Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab has taken toward students and faculty on Twitter...." It's not "actions," it's speech.

Now, the Committee is not suppressing the speech. It's only providing more speech, objecting to the things Goldrick-Rab has said. I object to the things she's saying and hate to see students scared over things that I don't think will affect them. But I think it would be better to address the substance of Goldrick-Rab's remarks rather than to call her speech "actions" and to accuse her of damaging the principle of academic freedom.