On March 23, 2012, I mailed out two FOIA requests, one under federal FOIA, and another under Utah’s, to the National Center of Hearing Assessment and Management at Utah State University. This was my letter below (without the letterhead containing my contact information). The only difference between the two letters were the citations of the applicable law that my requests were based upon.
National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management
Utah State University
2615 Old Main Hill,
Logan, Utah 84322FOIA REQUEST
Dear FOIA Officer:
Please send me a copy of the following public records:
- The titles and abstracts of submitted proposals that were rejected by any authority working with and/or for the 2012 Early Hearing Detection and Intervention [EHDI] Annual Meeting;
- The list of the 2012 Abstract Review Committee members and whom the individual Abstract Review Committee members were representing;
- The list of places, publications, media, etc., in which EHDI placed advertisements for the 2012 EHDI Annual Meeting;
- The list of places, publications, media, etc., in which EHDI placed notices about call for papers to the 2012 EHDI Annual Meeting.
This request for information is made pursuant to the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act, UCA §§63-2-101 to -207, which requires you to respond in writing within ten (10) business days. Please advise me in writing of the estimated cost of this FOIA request, prior to filling this request, if it is estimated to be $20.00 or more.
If my request is denied in whole or part, I ask that you provide me with your written rationale for all deletions and/or exclusions, by reference to specific exemptions of the act. Please communicate with me by email, if you have questions regarding this request.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Jeannette Johnson
On April 6, 2012, Dr. Karl White emailed me, and responded with the following:
Dear Jeannette Johnson
In your letters of March 23, 2012 you requested information about how proposals for presentations and posters that were presented at the 2012 National EHDI Meeting in St. Louis were solicited, reviewed and selected. In those requests you cited the Freedom of Information Act and the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act. I don’t believe any of the information you requested is subject to the provisions of those statutes, but I am happy to provide you with answers to most of your questions anyway because we want the procedures associated with the National EHDI Meeting to be open and transparent. We are always interested in finding ways to improve the EHDI Meeting and invite your suggestions.
Attached is information about the process for soliciting, reviewing and selecting presentations and posters at the EHDI Meeting that is based on a recent response to someone who made a similar request.
You also requested information about the the titles and abstracts of rejected proposals and the names of people who reviewed the abstracts. In the attached material I have indicated where you can find the names and affiliations of the members of the Planning Committee for the 2012 National EHDI Meeting (which is a different group of people from those who reviewed proposals). The names of the people who reviewed the proposals have not been published since this is a “blind” review process and I think it would be inappropriate for me to publish those names. If people who were on the review committee want to disclose their own names, they are certainly free to do that.
I am providing you with the titles of the rejected proposals because I believe this information was sent to you by CDC in response to your FOIA request to them. I hope you will not publish this information because it may be embarrassing to people whose proposals were rejected.
Please let me know if you have additional questions or suggestions.
Karl
I quickly responded to him with the following:
Dear Dr. White:
Are you the FOIA officer for Utah State University? From my experience with prior FOIA requests to a variety of public institutions across the country, it is my understanding that if you are not, you are obligated to forward my FOIA request to the Utah State University’s FOIA officer.
However, given your response, particularly your refusal to quote the applicable part of the statue on why this is being denied, please provide me with the name of the FOIA officer so I can send my request to the officer directly. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
Jeannette
Dr. White replied shortly after this with the following:
Dear Ms Johnson
I am not the FOIA Officer at Utah State University. A far as I know, Utah State University has not designated an FOIA Officer. I suggest you contact the University’s legal office or the office of the Utah State Attorney General if you would like additional information . Because your initial letter was sent to me, I did my best to answer your questions.
At that point, I decided do several things, and among one was to contact the Utah State University’s Provost and ask for the FOIA officer’s contact information. The Provost, after inquiring with the university’s attorney, replied within several hours with the information. And so, I sent Craig Simper, the university’s FOIA officer, my request. Since it was sent on April 6, the results of that FOIA request is still pending.
I have to point out several things here regarding Dr. White’s responses. I did not address the FOIA request to Dr. Karl White. If you read my letter carefully (and it was on the envelope as well), it was addressed to ‘FOIA officer’.
And it appears to me that Dr. White did not forward my FOIA letter to the appropriate officials, or even inquire with his employers whether there was a FOIA officer. Otherwise, why would he claim that to his knowledge, there was no FOIA officer at Utah State University? Given all of this, I find this to be quite a bit unusual, especially when one considers the seriousness of FOIA requests.
Furthermore, one should note that despite Dr. White’s claims of cooperation and willingness to answer questions in his initial email, I had to contact the provost in order to obtain the FOIA officer’s contact information, after his refusal to to my request for said information.
I also find it very interesting that that except for one item which I FOIA’ed both him and the CDC for (which I might add, haven’t gotten yet from the CDC. And nor is it the only thing I asked the CDC about), Dr. White gave me information that I did not ask for. So, why did Dr. White do this? This makes me wonder whether Dr. White would have been as “helpful” to every single person who made a similar request.
Then one has to contend with how Dr. White’s response to my FOIA was done. I have had my requests both approved and denied elsewhere in the past, and his email is not how you respond to a FOIA request in any shape or form. Why was the response done in this manner? Would have he responded in a similar manner to a hearing person?
(Edited to add: If you’re curious to see one of the 3 typical response to a FOIA request is, check out http://www.ita.doc.gov/ooms/FOIASampleLtr3.pdf and compare that to Dr. White’s response to me).
And last of all, what I find to be the most intriguing is Dr. White’s second to last line in his initial email. “I hope you will not publish this information because it may be embarrassing to people whose proposals were rejected.”
Would he make this kind of statement to a hearing person making a similar request? Would he even dream of making this kind of statement to a hearing blogger or reporter?
Given Dr. White’s overall conduct, I suspect that at the very least, he has something to hide. Especially when one notes that he’s essentially filibustering by giving me what I did not ask for. I wonder what the people at the CDC, the Health Resources Service Administration and our Congresspersons has to say about all of this, if they knew. Perhaps we all should go and find out, hmm?
At any rate, we should see within a few weeks, whether my suspicions are accurate.
To be continued…
Note: I’m not publishing the rejected titles until I get an official response (either a denial or approval with applicable information) from NCHAM and/or CDC on the entire content of my FOIA requests.
I would like to hear this one and look forward to seeing his respond. I would consider this information is very important to pass to the Deaf community in the future. In one day, it will come to open the worm of can soon. Thank you to Jeannette Jackson, who makes this happen!
Thank you, John. I need to point out that my last name is Johnson, though.
Oh damn… I dunno why to type Jackson. Smile….
I doubt Karl would of responded differently if you were hearing. How do you think he would respond to a hearing person? I am surprised he even responded. At least he responds and is respectfully trying to answer your questions, especially if he is supposedly hiding something. What is he hiding anyway? I can understand why someone would ask you not to publish the names of the people whose proposals were rejected. It is information some people may want to keep private, unless you get permission to make it public in your blog. It could be embarrassing for some.
Hi Jeannette,
You did stated your letter said: “Dear FOIA Officer” which this email is a written request in which you described the information you want, and the format you wanted it in, in as much detail as possible.
Karl stated that he is not FOIA Officer then why did he replied this email?
Karl already notified you in email and provided you with limit the scope of your request. So, what is his purpose to prevent anyone to know from the real detail or prevent from Offices of Analysis, Assessment and Accreditation in USU? I am sure they do working with stakeholders inside and outside Utah State University, they help establish systems and measures that facilitate. I would suggest you to check the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy in Utah oversees agency compliance with these directives and encourages all agencies to fully comply with both the letters from Karl White. Also, the Attorney General specifically called on agencies not to withhold information just because it technically falls within an exemption and he also encouraged agencies to make discretionary releases of records.
Karl stated his letter: “I hope you will not publish this information because it may be embarrassing to people whose proposals were rejected.” Which proposals were rejected? Why would he think that you would embarrassing to people? This questions got me thinking that he would be very embarrassing himself because of his proposals were rejected.
You did great job to email this letter and I do not understand why did Karl answer this email that he is not FOIA Officer? This is very intrusive letter from Karl. I am looking forward your next step to pull them out.
That’s amazing that Karl White has the power and it’s definitely a bad power…all depends on him to take care of deaf population and he called himself an expert of deaf population, gag! He’s hearing, how can he be the expert? He never experienced walking our shoes! We need to cut the power off from Karl White. I bet he told everyone to watch for your letter to prevent you from getting any after he saw your blogs.
You always a great “researcher and reporterr”! Keep it up and I’m rooting for you all the way!!! Looking forward to more dirt that really need to come out and expose the TRUTH!!!!
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Well, as I’ve stated before, I’ve had experience with FOIAs, and this is not how you respond to them. I would show you the responses I’ve gotten in the past, but I don’t have a scanner. But here’s a sample of how a FOIA response should look like. http://www.ita.doc.gov/ooms/FOIASampleLtr3.pdf
(edited to add ‘in the past).
Spiritualwing64,
Thanks for the suggestions, but both the Utah State University Provost and attorney is aware of this now. Their attorney also is the FOIA officer, by the way. So I’m sure the situation will be taken care of, one way or another.
If you read my FOIA request carefully, I had asked for all of the rejected titles and abstract proposals for the 2012 EHDI meeting. That is what Karl was referring to… he did not want me to publish the rejected titles because it’s too embarrassing to those who sent in the proposals.
The thing is, if this is public record, it can be FOIA’ed, and then published. That’s the beauty of FOIA and is exactly why I did not make an informal request.
Linda G-o,
I think you give Karl White too much power. Us Deaf have our own power too – the rights under the law, especially the United States Constitution.
At any rate, the truth will come out. It won’t happen overnight, but it eventually will come out.
Jeannette, like with anyone, give White the benefit of doubt the first time you confront regarding your FOIA request. It’s great you are persistent in what you do to facilitate resolution of White’s involvement. His possible resistance may be due to a conflict of interest on his behalf, and my concern is if you continue to encounter resistance, the real obstacle is going to be an intentional opposition to disclosure. It is clear White’s an obstructionist bureaucrat who may not provide you with materials readily on hand. You may not likely to accomplish this if you fall into an argumentative encounter with him that this will tarnish your request. We all know it cannot be controlled by arbitrary or actions of a hidden bureaucracy. I am no expert in this but feel the need to be cautious as we do not want to argue with this man as it may backfire the access to the desired information! So, give him more time and when we see more resistance from him, we should then do everything in our power to make a good record for review. Like you said, eventually the truth will be revealed…by itself…always, all ways
Oh, I’m being cautious. If I weren’t, then I would not have sent in the FOIA requests to find out what I wanted. I understand this kind of thing is new for many of us, and it *may* be for Dr. Karl White, but a FOIA is always taken very seriously by hearing people. It has a legal bite to it and people have actually paid money for their noncompliance with FOIA.
It could be that NCHAM is one of the rare exceptions that isn’t covered by FOIA. And if that’s so, then Dr. Karl White should’ve had the Utah State University attorney send me a formal letter/email stating just that, in the proper legal language.
Good morning, Jeannette
Yes, I read your request letter about rejected titles and abstract proposals. Karl concluded that politically-appointed agency heads to find information that they will be embarrassed or “second-guessed” if Karl’s reject proposals did not make in public. Karl feared for his job on grants, security, and advancement if his information which they will release leads to his embarrassment toward hearing parents and deaf communities. FOIA will force Karl and his employees to open potentially every file in their desk to public scrutiny, and we should not be surprised to find his resistance to this scrutiny.
I believe every hearing and deaf people have right to know what is Karl’s rejected proposals should make in public without hiding all the failures and bring the successful proposals. We all will keep fighting no matter what will lead us to find “real truth” from his hidden agendas.
We don’t know for sure what Karl really concluded. We are not mind-readers.
And I agree – given the allegations of discrimination against Deaf presenters, it is in the public’s interest to know this information. We will see what happens.
I think it’s great that the matter is being pursued. I just have one question- how does Utah State University come into play? I’m unclear on the relationship between the University and EHDI/NCHAM. Does the university have control of documents pertaining to EHDI/NCHAM or any governing power over this council? Can you please clarify the relationships between all those parties? Thanks.
Tavian,
If you look at the footer of NCHAM’s website (http://www.infanthearing.org/), you will see Utah State University’s logo. And from what I understand, per the documents I’ve seen from other parties, Utah State University is the recipient of the grant funds to operate NCHAM.
Hope that helps to answer your question.
Pundit,
Personally, I think you are chasing ghosts here….but do post the details *IF* you get them.
Good luck.
-J.J.
J.J.,
That’s fine if you think I’m chasing ghosts. I don’t think I am, and I think most reasonable people will agree with me.
Why? Because if wasn’t for my FOIA to the CDC, Dr. White wouldn’t have given me the list of rejected titles. That’s clearly stated in his initial email to me, which is published above in the post.
(BTW – CDC filed for a time extension so it could look into this thoroughly, which is why I haven’t heard back from them yet).
Sorry, I didn’t explain about this part so I am here to share my thought. The reason I said Karl concluded that politically-appointed agency heads which he stated his letter: “In those requests you cited the Freedom of Information Act and the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act. I don’t believe any of the information you requested is subject to the provisions of those statutes,…” He is trying to bring to an end or closed your letter for his reason. If you have any question so I will be happy to discuss. Have a great evening!
There’s some disagreement on whether CHAM is actually covered under FOIA. And it looks like Dr. White thinks NCHAM isn’t.
But like I told Tina Jo above, if NCHAM is not covered by FOIA, then he needs to send a more formal letter/email, with the citations, etc., explaining that.
Jeanette, Very interesting and wonder why Karl White do not want you to cause his embarrassing your comment after you clarification to Karl.
Linda G-o, Go way! I was giggled about Karl White has the power and it’s definitely a bad power…
Margaret