Preservation of Academic Freedom and Privacy Resolution

Whereas, freedom of debate and freedom of thought, including academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to read, and freedom to criticize governmental and non-governmental actions and positions, are foundations of American liberty and essential to republican self-government;

Whereas, American and foreign history includes instances, including our own Alien and Sedition Acts and McCarthy-era blacklistings, in which governmental and non-governmental authorities have misused information regarding citizens' actual or purported political beliefs to suppress academic freedom and political dissent;

Whereas, recent statutory innovations empower governmental agencies to seize library and University records;

Whereas, recent technological changes affect the records the University may be keeping, intentionally or unintentionally;

Whereas, records kept are records that have the potential to be misused;

And whereas, it is the special responsibility of Universities to preserve and advance freedom of debate and the liberties of thought;

Now therefore, the Faculty do hereby urge the Administration to cause the University to generate the minimum practical number and type of records that could be used to limit such freedoms, and in particular urge the Administration: to conduct an immediate audit of all current library, email and internet record-keeping practices throughout the University, and to conduct another such audit at least once every 5 years;

to act to minimize or eliminate all practices that generate records of any identifiable faculty member, staff, student, citizen or patron's use, reading, borrowing, visiting, or downloading of identifiable books, printed or electronic media, email, or internet websites or locales, except as may be clearly necessary for explicitly stated University purposes;

to direct University libraries to neither create nor retain records of materials (whether print, electronic or otherwise) read, used by, requested by or loaned to identifiable patrons (except while such materials are actually on loan to such individual);

to direct all persons administering University computers or computer systems to configure such computers and systems so as to minimize network records of identifiable patrons' web browsing or downloads, and to explicitly consider privacy concerns when generating records necessary for operation of the computer systems or protection against viruses, spam and similar misuse;

to direct all persons administering University email and server systems to ensure that emails, locally produced and downloaded materials that are "deleted" by the recipient are irretrievably deleted from the entire University network, together with all backup and other copies, within a fixed and limited period;

to direct all persons administering University computer systems to configure such systems so as to limit to the maximum extent practical the access to individually identifiable materials, email and other records kept on the system; to create a written policy:

(A) setting out the procedures by and circumstances under which the University will generate and/or retain individually identifiable records of any faculty member, staff, student, citizen or patron's use, reading, borrowing, visiting, or downloading of identifiable books, printed or electronic media, email, or internet websites or locales,

(B) stating that it is the University’s policy to challenge by appropriate legal action in an appropriate court, any request, whether by legal process or otherwise, to create or disclose such records,

(C) stating that it is the University's policy not to disclose any such records to any individual or body outside of the University except when directed to do so by a court of competent jurisdiction, and

(D) stating that it is the University's policy to publicly disclose all such requests for records or the production of records;

and to report to the Faculty annually:

(A) the results of the most recent audit of the University's record keeping procedures and any improvements or changes the Administration deems necessary or desirable to promote the goals of this Resolution,

(B) the types of individually identifiable records the University generates or retains of any faculty member, staff, student, citizen or patron's use, reading, borrowing, visiting, or downloading of identifiable books, printed or electronic media, email, or internet websites or locales,

(D) the University's response to each such request to generate or disclose individually identifiable records.