Senator Cropsey asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator Cropsey's statement is as follows:
As a reminder, the inaccurate list of school employees that has been the center of the controversy was not--I repeat, was not--created in accordance with the law. Additionally, both the Department of State Police and the Department of Education, the two departments involved, did not screen the lists really for inaccuracies. While deplorable, fortunately, that list is now history.
This bill would go a long way toward creating an accurate list, according to testimony before the Judiciary Committee. The heart of the problem is the media printing and associating false data with the names of innocent employees, based on an inaccurate list. As our Constitution states, and I quote, "Every person may freely speak, write, express and publish his views on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of such right..." To insist on the right to publish a list that is still being verified is unconscionable. And that is the tension we need to resolve--an individuals right to privacy with the corresponding right of the public to know how their government operates.
This amendment will allow the media to print names while giving the employees some level of privacy protection. At the state level, all information, except personal identifying information, would be subject to FOIA. This would give a picture statewide of school employees. Locally, all felonies will be subject to FOIA, as well as all misdemeanors that require discharge from employment, by name. All other misdemeanor convictions would not be subject to FOIA. However, a school could release the convictions and names if they so desired. This last point is very important, as it allows each district to tailor the release of names based upon whether or not the record is pertinent to how they fulfill their obligation to teach our children.
This amendment is the result of careful analysis of the case law on the Freedom of Information Act. The controlling decision is the Michigan Supreme Court decision in Mager v. Department of State Police. This decision delineates the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act by saying, "which is contributing significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government. That purpose, however, is not fostered by full disclosure of information about private citizens that is accumulated in various government files, but that reveals little or nothing about the agency's own conduct." And finally, quote "...fulfilling a request for information on private citizens, a request entirely unrelated to any inquiry regarding the inner working of government, or how well the Department of State Police is fulfilling its statutory functions, would be an unwarranted invasion of the privacy of those citizens."
Bottom line--the courts have consistently ruled for years that it is an unwarranted invasion of privacy to use the power of the Freedom of Information Act to gain information that has nothing to do with how a government entity fulfills its statutory obligations. A minor in possession conviction 30 years ago has nothing to do with how a school functions. Neither does an old malicious destruction of property misdemeanor from tearing down a goalpost in college days or an uttering and publishing conviction or even an old OUIL conviction, unless the employee drives with students in any official capacity. And that's why we leave the decision up to the local school district as to which convictions to release if they have nothing to do with how the school operates or protects its students.
The media can always FOIA court records if they want to expose convictions that are unrelated to a person's employment. But Americans treasure the right to privacy, and at some point, we need to respect that value while respecting the intent of the Freedom of Information Act. This amendment attempts to reach that balance.
Pertinent decisions include the Mager case, Detroit Free Press v. Department of State Police et al, Larry S. Baker v. City of Westland, Detroit Free Press v. Department of Consumer and Industry Services et al, in which the court stated that redacting names of private citizens "strikes a balance between preserving 'the informative value' of the records sought and protecting the individual's right to privacy." Other cases are the Detroit Free Press v. City of Warren, the Grand Rapids Press v. Kent County Sheriff's Department, Stone Street Capital, Inc., v. Michigan Bureau of State Lottery, and most recently this past December, Detroit Free Press v. City of Southfield.
The amendment gives the public the right to know if an employee's record affects their child while protecting the employee's right to privacy.
I urge your support.