In an era when fact and fiction intermingle like a Quentin Tarantino film, Connecticut lawmakers are proposing to make it even harder for residents to decipher reality.
One of their proposals is Senate Bill 1226, which aims to block access to virtually all activity conducted by public universities by making them exempt from Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requests. The bill mirrors a similar one from 2023, although this time around, the language is even broader, as it would exempt from disclosure any record that would arise “out of teaching or research on medical, artistic, scientific, legal or other scholarly issues.”
The bill would exempt not only professors, but staff as well. Technically speaking, the University of Connecticut Police Department are UConn staff, does that mean their work would be exempt from disclosure if, for example, police partnered with faculty on a criminal justice project? Or maybe officers gave professors access to a racial profiling database for a class, would that report become exempt? I could not think of a worse idea at the present moment, aside from giving the CSCU chancellor a pay bump.
If this bill becomes law, stories like the one published in 2022 by the Dallas Morning News, and later picked up by UConn’s student newspaper, The Daily Campus, would not be possible. Reporters used the FOIA to obtain records from UConn and other public universities that showed the schools were spying on their students’ social media accounts.
We also wouldn’t know if the university was improperly experimenting on animals, something Justin Goodman uncovered in 2004 when he used the FOIA to expose “wasteful and cruel experiments on monkeys.”
You may be asking yourself, what does the FOIA have to do with deciphering reality? When access to information is limited, people fill in the blanks with speculation and conjecture. If the state’s 18 public institutions start operating in secret, not only will accountability go out the window, but the conspiracy theories will spread like warm butter on toast, oozing off the edges and making everything around it an oily mess.
Sadly, the basement warriors from Qanonia who would have a field day if this bill were passed are likely the same people who have inspired the bill in the first place. They are allegedly weaponizing the FOIA and harassing professors, which professors say inhibits their ability to conduct important research. But Connecticut already has an exemption for such instances – the “vexatious requester” exemption. Passed in 2018, it was designed to prevent residents from weaponizing the FOIA. Public agencies have several pathways to prove a requester is being “vexatious,” so they already have the power to fight against the 4Chan battalion.
If the solution already exists, why, then, is there a proposed bill that would be redundant? It’s a great question, isn’t it?
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. There was no information on UConn’s FOIA-related legal expenses, either. We also don’t know the number of requests UConn received that could be considered vexatious, nor do we know this number as a percentage of total requests.
Like its earlier iteration, this bill is the definition of government overreach. If it becomes law, we wouldn’t know what textbooks are being used or even what’s on a syllabus. We may not be able to dig deeper into research that UConn presents in the best light possible, meaning accountability would be self-fulfilled. There would be no public oversight.
Public and private universities pour billions of dollars into the Connecticut economy. For its part, UConn reports that for every dollar in operating expenses, it generates $1.76 in economic output, contributes nearly 3 percent to the state’s GDP, and supports one out of 35 jobs in the state. The 17 other public institutions generate billions and employ tens of thousands. Why would we allow such an important component of Connecticut to operate in secret? It simply doesn’t make sense.
For professors who genuinely feel like they are being harassed by vexatious requesters, please use the remedies the law currently provides. In the meantime, I implore the House of Representatives to vote no on 1226.
David DesRoches of East Hampton is a Board member, Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information