At the beginning of June, FAU officials threatened Karla with unspecified retribution if she met me "on or off campus for the purpose of advising." Last week, FAU claimed that it was all a big "misunderstanding."
But as one First Amendment misunderstanding fades, another one emerges.
Now FAU is telling Karla she can't discuss what happens in a public meeting.
Karla is one of 10 members of a search committee that will choose FAU's first-ever assistant director of student media. In Florida, search committee meetings are open to the public. And the job applications are public record.
So last week, Karla gave me and her senior staff the login and password so we could view those applications (which, as you'll see below, Student Affairs recommended). And I attended the first search committee meeting, which is where all these photos were shot.
Then I wrote this post. The next day, Karla got an email from Student Affairs dean Corey King...
King provided this link to FAU's policies on the matter. Under "Confidentiality," it reads...
A search committee meeting is privileged information. Participating members must accept the responsibility to refrain from discussing any candidate’s name or status in the applicant pool. Committee members should not engage in conversation with any non-committee individual within or outside the University regarding applicants or committee activities. Requests for information should be referred to the committee Chairperson to be handled in accordance with FAU’s Public Records Request.
But that makes no sense. And a nationally recognized First Amendment attorney agrees.
Basically, FAU is saying that Karla can't talk to anyone about anything that happens in a search committee meeting – even though the meetings are public. She must do what administrators have done to the UP this past month: refer all requests for comment to Media Relations.
And even though the applications are public record, she can't show them even to her staff, who must request them from Media Relations.
(Which is weird, because last Thursday, King emailed the search committee that the "account is for the use of search committees and other people within your department." Karla's staff is her department. And I volunteer in her department.)
But Adam Goldstein, an attorney with the Student Press Law Center outside Washington, D.C., says none of this is legal...
If FAU is taking the position that it can discipline employees for disclosing public information to the public, that is a position at odds with both the letter and the spirit of the Sunshine Law. A state entity can't do an end-run around open records law by declaring that the public has a right to information, but that employees will be strictly punished for disclosing any.
And in fact, the UP violated those FAU policies just last year, when former EIC Michele Boyet sat on the search committee that hired student media director Marti Harvey. The lead of that story described the scene at one of those meetings...
Paul Bomberger’s deep voice emanated from a speakerphone in the middle of a conference room as he talked about his business experience and the importance of “being an advocate for students.” Two women listened intently, another rolled her eyes and two others typed on their BlackBerrys.
So Karla is calling FAU's bluff three times over...
1. She's going to be a journalist and write all about the applicants and the search committee meetings – without asking Media Relations to set up an interview with herself.
2. On her own blog today, she's offering to provide the job applications to anyone who emails her asking for it.
3. If you want to be party to the rule-breaking, Karla will even talk with you on the phone about what happens in the meetings and offer you her thoughts.
Here we go again.
TOMORROW: Google guerrillas wage online war with FAU.
