What about journalists? Should they go through IRB approval before publishing a story?
For a student project, I once did a user study with a purely informational app. I needed to get approval and have each participant sign a form that I had adequately informed them about the possible dangers of the experiment (none) and that their data would remain confidential and so on.
The effort seems ridiculous when it's obvious that there's no danger, but the whole point of having a review process is to make sure that someone checks.
If not, the answer is no, though you can read the federal regulations yourself to prove me wrong:
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=&SID=83cd09e1c0...
Boghossian is an employee of Portland State, an institution which almost certainly receives grant funding from the federal government for research. Some minute portion of his salary/office/supplies/etc. are paid for by said federal research grant money.
Regardless, the regulations apply to the entire institution and therefore any faculty members of said institution.