Public Records As Trade Secrets?

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Charles N. Davis

Wow, this is horrible precedent: publicly generated records as trade secrets. Public universities can withhold records, including lists of season ticket holders, as trade secrets, the Connecticut Supreme Courtruled Tuesday. Former state Rep. Jonathan Pelto submitted a freedom of information request for database information from the University of Connecticut in 2008. The request included the athletic [...]

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Aiming Nuclear Weapons at Academic Molehills

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Charles N. Davis

I warned you last year that this was likely coming somewhere… In Virginia, the attorney general, skeptical of global warming, tried to use his subpoena powers to build a fraud case against a climatology professor. In Wisconsin, Republican Party officials sought the emails of a history professor, trying to demonstrate that he had misused his public account [...]

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Secret University Searches, and the Excuses Made for Them…

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Charles N. Davis

The Associated Press reporter Alan Zagier wrote a nice story looking at the tale of two very different searches at my university, one fairly open, one Vatican-like in its secrecy…and I lob an incendiary quote in for good measure! “The law school search really demonstrates the power of this institution to attract high-caliber candidates in [...]

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Connecticut’s High Court to Hear FOI Case Involving UConn Ticket Holder Info

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Charles N. Davis

Connecticut’s highest court will soon consider whether the University of Connecticut must release its season ticket holders’ names and some other lists under open records laws. The state Supreme Court has scheduled an Oct. 21 hearing on the case, which stems from a Freedom of Information Commission decision in 2009. That agency ordered UConn to [...]

Filed under: 3. Access law, 6. Overcoming denials | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Quite possibly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they talked democracy…

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Charles N. Davis

This story is just crazy awesome. Seems the Regents at Rutgers had a crowd fairly upset with them the other night over, well, I don’t know…an issue of university import. So their response? They built a wall between themselves and the crowd! I would have given anything to be at that meeting…and I so hope [...]

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Judge orders release of university foundation records…

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Charles N. Davis

From the erstwhile Student Press Law Center: A state court judge on Monday ordered the releaseof East Stroudsburg University Foundation’s donation records, placing a hopeful capstone on a 2-year public records battle. In February 2009 The Pocono Record, a regional paper in Pennsylvania, filed a public records request for funding information from the East Stroudsburg University Foundation in [...]

Filed under: 2. Doc state of mind, 3. Access law, 6. Overcoming denials | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

UK Site Uses FOI To Examine Universities…

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Charles N. Davis

AcademicFOI.Com aims to investigate UK universities and higher education institutions through the use of Freedom of Information requests. We actively invite suggestions for investigations from university staff, student representatives, careers teachers, alumni, benefactors, research clients, journalists, politicians and special interest groups. The results of requests are carefully analysed, published in detail on our website and [...]

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Did The Wisconsin GOP Get Anything of Use From Their Much-Ballyhooed FOI Request?

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Charles N. Davis

I don’t really know, but this thoughtful commentary on the issue has me wondering whether the balancing test employed by the University of Wisconsin in determining which records would be disclosed is not ripe for appeal. cd

Filed under: 1. Records that matter, 2. Doc state of mind, 3. Access law | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

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