Today, the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee took public testimony on a bill that would exempt disclosure of education or research documentation for state universities under the Freedom of Information Act.
The raised bill would exempt documents kept by state college staff or professors pertaining to “teaching or research on medical, artistic, scientific, legal or other scholarly issues, including any such records of legal clinics or centers.” It would not exempt financial records.
“Higher education can only serve the public good if teachers and scholars are free to follow the evidence and the arguments where it takes us,” said Isaac Kamola, an associate professor of political science at Trinity College. “Increasingly, however, many faculty worry that something we write on our syllabus, say in the classroom or make in an exchange with colleagues will become weaponized against us.”
Several college professors and college unions submitted testimony in support of the bill, arguing that the current political climate has led to a marked increase of FOIA requests regarding their curriculum in an attempt to find “evidence” that professors are politically indoctrinating students. They argue that these requests are not submitted in good faith but as an act of intimidation that interferes with a professor’s coursework and causes undue stress or fear of physical harm.
Kamola spoke at length regarding his experience with such phenomena, saying it has worsened over the years as organizations such as TurningPoint USA began publishing its “Professor Watch List”, highlighting “faculty it accuses of indoctrinating students.” Kamola also claimed outlets such as Campus Reform and The College Fix have acted as agitators.
“These outlets often portray faculty members in highly distorted ways designed to meet a broader political agenda,” said Kamola.
Kamola started a project in 2020 called “Faculty First Responders,” with the goal of supporting college faculty that have faced such inquiries in the past. He said through his work, he has met professors that have lost their jobs due to negative coverage as a result of FOIAs into their curriculum, has met faculty who have taken time off due to stress from such requests, or had to spend time and money consulting with lawyers as result. Kamola noted that professors working in the fields of climate science or racial or gender equality are those most often targeted.
“In my experience, those seeking to discredit faculty are not interested in the actual content of our research or teaching,” said Kamola. “They instead seek to delegitimize certain faculty to achieve their political objectives.”
Opponents of the bill argue that its broad language would essentially allow universities the ability to bar any FOIA request that doesn’t specifically pertain to finances, representing an overstep on the part of the state. They also argued that such instances of bad faith FOIA requests are rare and that state laws already provide the protections necessary to protect professors from them. The state Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) and the Connecticut Council on FOI (CCFOI) submitted testimony opposed to the bill.
“We have been here before,” wrote Jeffrey Daniels, Co-Chair of the Legislative Committee of CCFOI. “This legislation represents an effort by the public university establishment to create a near-blanket exemption from disclosure of nearly all information by any institution of higher education in CT.”
Daniels described the bill as a “misguided way to address a rare-event problem.” He also cited two existing sections of Connecticut’s statutes that already work to address such requests; Sec 210-(b)(3), and Sec. 1-206(6). The first statute allows the subjects of such requests to report them to law enforcement, and “allow strong non-disclosure protection where a safety risk exists,” according to Daniels. The second statute allows the FOIC to intervene in the case of“vexatious requests.”
Daniels wrote that the bill’s current language would allow schools the ability to deny requests pertaining to subjects far broader than the bill’s spirit intends, including not only academic materials but also personnel policies and information and university programs and policies. Daniels wrote that including research as an exempt subject would inhibit “from public view issues relating to efficacy, ethics, and transparency of process.”
This concern with the potential occlusion of research ethics was also echoed in the written testimony of Jessica Rubin, a law professor and director of UConn’s Animal Law Clinic. She requested that the bill carve out an exemption for animal experimentation, as it “carries such strong public interest and ethical concerns.” She was otherwise favorable to the bill’s intent.
Dr. Alaina Brenick, an associate professor of human development and family sciences at UConn, argued both that the bill would not inhibit the public from obtaining research information and claims that these requests are not as rare as they once were.
David DesRoches of the CCFOI challenged the assumption in an op ed to the CT Mirror, writing, “When this proposal originally surfaced two years ago, proponents had offered no data to describe the negative effects of FOIA requests on university research. Essentially, it was a few anecdotes from UConn professors.”
“Raised Bill 1226. is not about limiting transparency and withholding information from the public,” said Brenick. “Quite the opposite.”
Brenick said that the vast majority of research conducted by public universities require grant funding, and that “many grantors require that our data are publicly accessible.” She stated that research abstracts, which include methodology and impact, are already included on granting federal agency websites. Brenick then cited a personal example in which she faced what she believed to be a targeted FOIA request.
“The FOIA request that was made on my grant came only a few months after our grant was awarded by the NSF, and there was no additional information available from us, the individual scholars, that was not also available through the NSF,” said Brenick. “Why, then, is it necessary to submit FOIA requests to individual faculty in this instance, why was it necessary to submit the same request to multiple faculty?”
Brenick argued that it was not an earnest request for information, but “a fear tactic and a calculated effort designed to intimidate faculty and monopolize our time, reducing our productivity as educators and researchers, and consequently stifling scientific advancements and impacts.” She also noted that the person who filed the request had filed 400 separate FOIA requests that year.
The Committee offered few questions for Kamola and Brenick, both of whom testified in person, perhaps because this isn’t the first time such a bill has been brought before the legislature. It was first raised in 2023, and was again raised in last year’s session. Both times, the bill made it out of committee but never got called to a vote. Sachin Pandya, a legal professor at UConn, addressed the bill’s previous failures, and requested that this year by the year it passes.
“Don’t let the opponents, including the FOIA commission staff, mislead you about the law,” said Pandya. “Ask them and then others this question, how many more faculty have to live with the fear and uncertainty of FOIA harassment for their research and teaching before you will care enough to act?”
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If you accept public funding from local, state or federal governments, then FOIA from that funding public is the cost. If you want to avoid FOIA, then go private or do not accept public funds.