Quote:
Originally Posted by dogzilla
There were requests to the governor to release the contents of his emails related to this issue. This professor works for the taxpayers and used his employer's email system to send these emails so he has little or no expectation of privacy with them. If there's issues of student privacy, etc, then let the court resolve the conflicts with those laws and exclude what isn't required to be released.
Bottom line, by refusing to release the emails, he's raising the question of what he's trying to hide.
|
First of all, I would imagine that the difference between the governor and a university professor who happens to be employed at a public university would be self evident.
Second, of course, is that the fact that the Republican party CAN request this is not in dispute. Such thing is so trivial as to be beyond dispute.
Third, this whole "what he is trying to hide" is such bullshit that it is hard to take seriously. It is ironic that such a point was raised in an anonymous internet forum. But in any case, it is not his place to disclose those emails, for reasons that I have already mentioned here. Only the legal department of the university can do so, as his emails likely involve communications with students and about students (and as such are confidential per FERPA), communications about tenure, hiring and promotion decisions within the university (and as such are protected by numerous other privacy laws) and a whole sort of other university business that may or may not be protected by corresponding privacy laws.
Finally, I think it is funny how the issue that this is clearly an intimidation attempt by the republican party is completely ignored. If people had bothered to read what has actually been posted here, they would have found out that the professor has long kept a separate email for personal business, and as such it is highly unlikely that there would be anything "embarrassing" to reveal (and if there was, the worst they would be able to find is a breach of the terms of use of University of Wisconsin emails). Of course, that is his word that it is so, but my experience in most universities is that most professors keep personal emails for anything more contentious, not because of fear of FOIA and so on action, but because IT departments are generally staffed by students and so on, with full access to databases and the like. The principle of the thing is the abhorrent part. That the publishing of a blog post about the situation would lead to something like this is ridiculous. That the usual partisans have to resort to the whole "if he is innocent he should make his emails public" is unsurprising.