Texas A&M University has an employment policy which gets in the way of faculty members teaching about FOIA. From the Daily Texan editorial
The Texas A&M University System is stirring up controversy over a policy where faculty members can be disciplined, even fired, for asking students to submit requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) about universities within the system. FOIA requests are a tool journalists commonly use to obtain information from government entities, including public universities.
and from the FOI Foundation of Texas:
The chorus of voices calling for the Texas A&M University System to reconsider its controversial public information policy for faculty just increased exponentially: Presidents representing 15 of the most influential journalism organizations across the country calling on Tx A&M to “…reconsider the policy in question and its proposed interpretation, and to assure the public, (Tx A&M) students, and journalism instructors such as (Dan) Malone that the Texas A&M System supports open government, academic freedom, and the teaching of watchdog journalism that is so critical to the continuing health of our democracy.”
It's a policy still being worked out among faculty members at Tarleton State University, notes the Art of Access blog:
A meeting this afternoon at Tarleton didn’t clear up much. Journalism instructor Dan Malone and communications department head Charles Howard met with Provost Gary Peer to discuss the policy. Afterward, Howard said the policy is still being clarified. No changes to the school’s curriculum, textbooks, or methods of teaching are pending until further clarification comes from the A&M system.
There's some good set of follow-on questions to be raised, looking for other clauses in the employment policies and union contracts of public employees that either seek to limit use of FOIA law by employees, or that protect employees from FOIA requests directed at their personal information.
