School administrators don’t like being criticized on the site and the situation has gotten so bad that it led to a lawsuit.

Juan Perez, Jr. of the Chicago Tribune reported.

2 professors sue CSU in blog case

Two Chicago State University professors sued campus administrators in federal court Tuesday, alleging that campus policies illegally targeted a controversial faculty-led blog.

Phillip Beverly and Robert Bionaz are CSU professors and, they say in their lawsuit, founders of and contributors to the CSU Faculty Voice blog. The site’s posts often feature critical views of the school’s leaders, and the blog has long been at the core of a rift between some faculty members and administrators.

School administrators, the lawsuit alleges, “have engaged in an ongoing campaign to silence Plaintiffs’ criticisms of how the University is run.”

“They have threatened legal action in an effort to shut down the blog, taken other behind-the-scenes actions to achieve this objective, and ultimately adopted a ‘Cyberbullying Policy’ that broadly prohibits electronic communication that may have an ‘adverse impact on the work environment of a CSU faculty member or employee’ as another tool for restricting Plaintiffs’ speech,” the suit alleges.

Such actions are unconstitutional, the professors say, adding that the administration’s dealings have hampered their right to free speech. The professors have asked a judge to stop the university’s alleged actions and seek an unspecified amount of damages.

The lawsuit lists campus President Wayne Watson, campus General Counsel Patrick Cage, Associate General Counsel Janelle Carter and the university board as defendants.

Watson, in a statement, said the lawsuit was “frivolous” and “baseless.” The campus cyberbullying policy, he said, was designed to protect students.

“The very fact that the two faculty members in question are so concerned about how our efforts to put an end to bullying on our campus will affect them is in and of itself very telling,” he said.