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Universities Express Concern About the USA Patriot Act
By Lauren E. Losely
Faculty senates at several colleges and universities have adopted resolutions in an attempt to protect their students and employees from aspects of the USA Patriot Act. The act contains provisions that intrude on academic freedom, including one stipulating that libraries and booksellers must provide information concerning the records of their patrons when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) requests them. They are not allowed to inform others of the bureau's request. The college and university faculty senates that have passed such resolutions include those at the University of Oregon, Muhlenberg College, Stanford University, the State University of New York College at Fredonia, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Berkeley.
The Berkeley academic senate unanimously approved a resolution in May proposing that the university's chancellor, or a single designee of the chan-cellor, respond to all requests for information from the FBI. The resolution states that having a single respondent would help control the information given to the FBI and ensure that an appropriate university official was aware of the requests and therefore able to "challenge and resist investigations, interrogations, or arrest procedures, public or clandestine, that are in violation of individuals' civil rights or civil liberties in the Constitution of the United States." Because of the secrecy clause in the provision covering libraries and booksellers, individuals whose records are sought by the FBI typically have difficulty mounting legal challenges to the requests because they are not aware that the demands have been made.
"Our faculty seeks to organize universities around the country to work together to launch an appropriate court case for challenging the USA Patriot Act," says Dan Wilson, professor of German at Berkeley and co-author of the faculty senate resolution. "The only way of doing so effectively is to refuse to accept a subpoena issued under the act. We are hopeful that the new chancellor will provide leadership in the American university community on this and similar issues of crucial importance to protecting civil liberties and academic freedom."
The academic senate also urged the chancellor to petition Congress to support judicial review, to annul laws like the USA Patriot Act that violate constitutional rights, and to refrain from enacting similar legislation in the future. Although the chancellor has agreed to appoint a single designee to respond to all FBI requests for information, he has not agreed to mount the challenges.
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