Evans: No justification for shutting out the public

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There are some high-minded legal principles written into Iowa laws and rulings by our state’s Supreme Court. But in recent weeks, one of those sound principles has run into a few closed-minded state officials and the closed doors of government. Some officials prefer to conduct the people’s business without being bothered with having the pesky public around. This has occurred during the Iowa Board of Regents process for learning what students and employees at the University of Iowa hope to see in a new UI president. This has occurred as the Iowa Department of Public Health tapped into the advice of medical experts on what priorities should be established for access to the new coronavirus vaccines.

First Amendment

Evans: Teachers deserve protection for protecting student rights

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A bill now awaiting debate and a vote in the Iowa Senate is quite short. It adds a mere 10 lines to the Iowa Code. But those 10 lines are an important legal statement Iowa lawmakers should adopt before they finish their work for 2020. Senate File 2331 says employees of Iowa’s public schools shall not be dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned or in any other way retaliated against for protecting a student’s freedom of expression or for refusing to infringe on a student’s First Amendment rights. Currently, students in Iowa public schools have a right to exercise freedom of speech in the papers they are assigned to write for classes or in articles they write for their school’s student newspaper.

freedom of information

Iowa FOI Council Announces Annual 1st Amendment Award Recipients

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The Iowa Freedom of Information Council this week announced the 2019 recipients of its Friend of the First Amendment Award, which is given each year in memory of longtime Iowa Press Association and Iowa Daily Press Association journalist Harrison “Skip” Weber. This year’s recipients are the mother of a police shooting victim and two Iowa newspaper editors. They will be honored on Sept. 26 during the annual Celebrating a Free Press and Open Government banquet in Des Moines. (click the button to buy a banquet ticket)

The recipients are:

Brian Cooper, the longtime editor of the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, through the years has been one of Iowa’s leading voices on the important role public access to government records and meetings plays in our democracy and in ensuring government accountability.

freedom of information

IowaWatch Co-Founder Returning To Iowa To Headline Sept. 27 Celebrating A Free Press And Open Government Banquet

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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Stephen J. Berry, whose push for journalists to work thoroughly and ethically led him to co-found the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch, will be the annual Celebrating a Free Press and Open Government Banquet’s guest speaker in Des Moines on Thursday, September 27, 2018.

police records

Lack Of Transparency Isn’t Helping With Trust

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Much of the relationship between the people and their governments is built on trust. But that relationship is fragile — especially when it appears government is going out of its way to keep the public in the dark.

Randy Evans

Stray Thoughts: There Are Important Lessons In Simplicity

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Envy affects people in different ways. Some of us are motivated by the old adage of “keeping up with the Joneses.”

But I have no desire to keep up with them, or with the Trumps. I would not want to live in Trump Tower. Randy Evans
On Open Government
Randy Evans is the executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. He is a former editorial page editor and assistant managing editor of The Des Moines Register.