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Dear Colleagues:
In recent years a
number of universities including UCLA have received public records
requests seeking disclosure of faculty members’ scholarly
communications. The potential chilling effect of these requests has
raised new questions about academic freedom and its intersection with
public institutions’ legal obligations to conduct business
transparently.
UCLA’s joint
Administration–Senate Academic Freedom Task Force, charged with helping
our campus prepare to respond to such requests, recently published its Statement on the Principles of Scholarly Research and Public Records Requests.
The statement is a compelling affirmation of our peer review system and
the right of faculty to conduct research and scholarship on
controversial topics free from political interference. I wholeheartedly
endorse it, as do the Academic Senate, Executive Vice Chancellor and
Provost Scott Waugh, and other UCLA academic and administrative
leadership. I urge you to read it.
The statement
stands as the guiding principles for UCLA’s response to requests for
disclosure of faculty members’ scholarly communications. The task force
also developed a Faculty Resource Guide for California Public Records Requests
that explains how UCLA faculty should respond to requests for records
and manage electronic records in light of the California Public Records
Request Act.
UCLA is among
the first universities to consider this issue systematically, and the
result is a set of guiding principles based on our core values. Please
join me in expressing appreciation for the outstanding work by the task
force, which was co-chaired by Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel
Carole Goldberg and Professor David Teplow, chair of the academic
freedom committee of the Academic Senate. Other members were Senior
Campus Counsel Amy Blum and professors Barbara Herman, Matthew Kahn, Ann
Karagozian, Christopher Kelty and Mark Sawyer.
Sincerely,
Gene D. Block
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