Apparently one Dr. Paul E. Nelson, chairman of the Department of Communication at North Dakota State University, has been sending out emails to his colleagues (using his university email address) asking them advocate against North Dakota ballot measures 1 and 2 (the oil trust fund and the 50% income tax cut).

Friends of ATR has a copy of the alleged email in question:

From: Paul Nelson
Date: Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 9:08 AM
Subject: Vote No on Measures 1 & 2

Colleagues:

North Dakota State University will suffer immediate financial damage if measures 1 and 2 pass on the November ballot.

Many of our students are voting for the first time. Without demanding that they vote a certain way, you can use the attached information to show how the defeat of Measures 1 and 2 will affect their lives. We can hope that they vote self-interest.

If you want or need more information on the measures, Kelly has at her desk an explanation of the ballot measures.

Paul E. Nelson, Ph.D.
Professor & Head
Communication
NDSU Dept #2310

There is indeed a Paul E. Nelson who is the chairman of the Department of Communication at NDSU.  I’ve placed a call to Mr. Nelson’s office requesting confirmation of this email.

I hope this email isn’t true.  Not only is this probably an illegal use of taxpayer resources, but also you would hope that in an institute of higher learning the professors would let the students think for themselves.

Plus, there’s more than enough money in the state government right now to pass measures 1 and 2 without cutting any spending.

Update: I spoke with Dr. Nelson.

I asked him if he had sent the email, and he straight out confirmed it: “Yes I did.”

I asked him if he used his University email address to send out the email and he responded by saying that “everyone” on campus was doing it “because we don’t want measure 1 and 2 to pass.”

I asked him if he knew the email system was funded by the taxpayers and he said “well put me in jail, it’s full of drug dealers.”

Update: A reader sends along the attachment to the email.  You can download it here, or just read it below:

VOTE NO ON MEASURES 1 & 2

TUITION INCREASES FOR A TOTAL OF 8-12%

SIGNIFICANT REDUCTIONS IN NEEDS AND MERIT-BASED STUDENT GRANT PROGRAMS

75% OF ND STUDENTS GRADUATE WITH DEBT AVERAGING OVER $20,000.00.
ND STUDENTS ARE SECOND HIGH IN THE NATION IN NUMBER WITH INDEBTEDNESS.

TELL ND PARENTS AND RELATIVES ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF THESE MEASURES. EVEN OUR POPULAR GOVERNOR OBJECTS.

Clearly this information was intended to be handed out to students.

So what we have here is a department chair at NDSU using taxpayer resources to instruct his subordinates to distribute literature opposing two ballot measures to students.

That scenario implies a whole number of ethical and legal questions.