Just last month, Virginia’s high court upheld the University of Virginia’s right not to disclose a professor’s emails about his work on climate change to a conservative organization that requested their release under the Freedom of Information Act.
InsideHigher Ed reports that “Now the university is again being asked to disclose a faculty member’s email correspondence and other personal records — this time by a gay rights advocacy group that says it’s concerned that the work of renowned Constitutional law professor Douglas Laycock is being used to support anti-gay and pro-life legislation.
“Although the two Virginia requests came from different sides of the political aisle, experts say they raise similar issues. Namely, experts say, FOIA requests regarding professors’ preliminary scholarship and personal correspondence walk a fine line between ensuring transparency in public institutions and infringing on academic freedom. The newest case is particularly notable due to Laycock’s eminence in the field and the fact that he is married to U.Va. President Teresa A. Sullivan.
“Earlier this month, the university received a FOIA request from two students, in consultation with GetEQUAL, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights advocacy group based in Berkeley, Calif. The request seeks access to emails to and from Laycock’s university account to three conservative political organizations, along with phone records from the professor’s work cell phone from January 2012 to May of this year and expense reports for travel during the same period. The request also seeks access to relevant emails sent to and from the professor’s assistant, and the professor’s employment contract. The request says: “At the heart of this [FOIA] request is a general concern University of Virginia resources may have been used to help finance causes that are perpetuating harm to [LGBT] individuals and the reproductive rights of women across the country, including here on UVA’s campus.” Continue reading “Academic freedom vs disclosure”
Marriage equality = religious freedom
A coalition of clergy members is challenging North Carolina’s constitutional ban on gay marriage with an unusual approach: They’re filing a federal lawsuit that contends that the ban violates their First Amendment religious freedom rights.
The clergy members said in the lawsuit filed Monday that they would like to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies in their congregations but can’t because of the “unjust law.”
The lawsuit is one of dozens that have been filed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of the Defense of Marriage Act last year. Since then, several states have challenged the legality of their same-sex marriage bans. But this is the first to use the First Amendment protection of freedom of religion as the basis for the challenge.
“North Carolina’s marriage laws are a direct affront to freedom of religion,” said the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, executive minister with the Cleveland-based United Church of Christ, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “We feel that it is important that any person that comes into community life of a United Church of Christ congregation be afforded equal pastoral care and equal opportunity to religious services that clergy provide.”
But in North Carolina, clergy are often faced with a troubling decision — “whether to provide those services or break the law,” Guess said. “That’s something no clergy member should be faced with.”
Along with the United Church of Christ, which has more than 1 million parishioners across the country and over 50,000 in North Carolina, a dozen clergy members and same-sex couples were listed as plaintiffs. The defendants included North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and several county district attorneys as well as five registers of deeds. Continue reading “Marriage equality = religious freedom”
The decline of American (internet) empire?
American media famously dominated the globe for most of the 20th century. But like a lot of things in the last decade or so, U.S. cultural imperialism has been lagging a bit. A Story in today’s issue of Le Monde discusses the internet fortunes built by American companies like Google and Facebook – and the future.
“The geopolitics of the Internet broke open during the first half of December at an international conference in Dubai convened by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN affiliate agency with 193 national members. 
At these meetings, states (thronged by corporate advisors) forge agreements to enable international communications via cables and satellites. These gatherings, however boring and bureaucratic, are crucial because of the enormous importance of networks in the operation of the transnational political economy. Continue reading “The decline of American (internet) empire?”
Most think government threatens their rights
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Jan. 9-13 among 1,502 adults, finds that 53% think that the federal government threatens their own personal rights and freedoms while 43% disagree. According to Pew,
“In March 2010, opinions were divided over whether the government
represented a threat to personal freedom; 47% said it did while 50% disagreed. In surveys between 1995 and 2003, majorities rejected the idea that the government threatened people’s rights and freedoms.
“The growing view that the federal government threatens personal rights and freedoms has been led by conservative Republicans. Continue reading “Most think government threatens their rights”
Political tweet sends Kuwaiti to prison
It was s short message. But the nation that led the U.S. into a war over “freedom” takes Twitter seriously.
“A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, a lawyer following the case said, as the Gulf Arab state cracks down on criticism of the authorities on social media,” reports Reuters.
“According to the verdict on Sunday, published by online newspaper Alaan, a tweet written by Rashid Saleh al-Anzi in October “stabbed the rights and powers of the Emir” Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah. Continue reading “Political tweet sends Kuwaiti to prison”
Ending modern day slavery
“You know that moment when you read something, and then immediately have to re-read it because you cannot believe it is true? That happened to me when I read that the levels of slavery and people trafficking today are greater than at any point in history.” These words by Tony Maddox introduce the CNN Freedom Project, which two weeks ago won an Online Journalism Award (OJW) for its newly launched digital magazine combatting global slavery. CNN received honors in the Best Feature category for it series “Slavery’s Last Stronghold,” which followed the stories of slaves and slave owners in Mauritania, the last country in the world to abolish slavery but where it is thought between 10% and 20% of the population still live in servitude. The United Nations estimates the total market value of human trafficking at 32 billion U.S. dollars.
But slavery isn’t an abstract or far-away issue. California accounts for 25% of human trafficking in the US, with the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco leading the list of slave cities. This November, California Ballot Initiative #35 would strengthen criminal penalties for those who gain from such exploitation. Continue reading “Ending modern day slavery”