WASHINGTON, DC (March 12, 2024): As part of the Right on Transparency coalition, Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) and other leading public interest groups are participating in Sunshine Week, a week dedicated to bringing awareness to the need for transparency and public access to government records.
SLF has joined the coalition in releasing a new model policy that urges states to remove residency requirements from their open-records laws. Any person should be able to submit a freedom of information act request to state or local government. But some states do not let individuals submit open records requests to local government unless they are citizens of that state. By preventing non-citizens from accessing government information, the government skirts accountability and inhibits Americans from knowing what impactful policy choices their neighbors are making.
In an article for Sunshine Week, SLF Attorney Ben Isgur and Vice President of Litigation for SLF Braden Boucek describe the growing number of school districts that are refusing to provide parents access to their children’s school materials, claiming that the materials are copyrighted. Parents have a right to inspect and review materials for all sorts of reasons, such as criticism, comment, teaching, and research. When government schools invoke copyright protections to prevent parents from knowing what their children are learning, it undermines the transparency and accountability that are so desperately needed in government today.
SLF consistently brings legal action to restore constitutional balance and ensure that the public knows what the government is doing. From helping parents expose invasive student surveys in their school districts, to uncovering the Biden family’s business dealings in Ukraine and then-Vice President Biden’s use of private, pseudonymous emails, SLF acts as a legal watchdog in both state and federal arenas.
Read more about SLF’s transparency work here.
Download press release.