States and Courts Urged to Offer Scholars Protections From Records Requests

State legislatures and courts should take steps to prevent open-records laws from having a chilling effect on academic inquiry, argues a new report by Rachel Levinson-Waldman, senior associate counsel at the American Association of University Professors. The report, published by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (which says it does not necessarily endorse her views), argues that states and courts should consider carving out explicit exemptions from open-records laws for scholarly work, declaring public colleges’ faculty members exempt from open-records laws, or developing ways of balancing academic freedom and the public’s right to know on a case-by-case basis. The report was written in response to recent controversies involving efforts to use open-records laws to gain access to communications by scholars in Michigan, Virginia, and Wisconsin.