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National FOI Expert Visits Bowen, Speaks to Class



The Law School hosted Professor Charles Davis, Ph.D., of the University of Missouri School of Journalism on September 25, 2008, to talk to students about freedom of information law.

 

Davis is an associate professor at the top-ranked Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, and he is executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC), www.nfoic.org, a national network of open-government organizations based at the school.  Davis received his doctoral degree from the University of Florida, where he studied media law.  He is recognized as a national expert in freedom of information law, and he has authored and edited highly regarded books and law review articles on the subject.

 

At the invitation of Professor Richard Peltz, the Bowen Law School’s resident expert in freedom of information law and co-author of the treatise, The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, Davis addressed Peltz’s classes in First Amendment Law and Advanced Torts.  Davis discussed the work of the NFOIC and leading issues in freedom of information law today, such as personal privacy interests in electronic records and government secrecy in the name of homeland security.

 

Davis explained to students how the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee severely limited the scope of the federal Freedom of Information Act.  He explained the repercussions of that decision that are still felt at both federal and state levels.  He then took questions, and students asked about issues such as public access to criminal histories and to federal detention records in the war on terror.

 

After visiting the Law School, Davis met with the Arkansas Freedom of Information Coalition, a watchdog group of media, governmental, and general public representatives that monitors freedom of information law and policy in Arkansas.  Professor Peltz serves on the coalition, which, upon Davis’s invitation, voted to affiliate itself with the NFOIC.