UNC faculty have come to the defense of University law professor Gene Nichol after the conservative Civitas Institute filed a large public records request Oct. 25 targeting him.
Civitas asked UNC for all of Nichol’s email, phone correspondence and calendars from Sept. 14 to Oct. 25, offering no specific reason for the move.
In response, Eric Muller and Maxine Eichner, both UNC law professors, wrote a letter, signed by 28 other current and retired UNC faculty, defending Nichol that ran in The Chapel Hill News last week.
“We deeply admire Gene Nichol’s commitment to protecting and speaking for the state’s poor and disempowered,” the letter said. “The only comfort we take from this sorry request by Civitas is our confidence that it will increase his passion.”
Muller said Civitas is simply relying on the fact that they have the legal right to make the request through the Freedom of Information Act.
“I don’t see an explanation for why they are choosing to make this request other than to push back at him as a result of his outspoken opinions,” he said.
Eleven days before the request was filed, Nichol, also the director of UNC’s Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity, wrote an op-ed in The (Raleigh) News & Observer criticizing Gov. Pat McCrory.
“The Civitas move is, unfortunately, an easy ploy,” Nichol said in an email. “You don’t like what someone writes, so you hit him or her with one of these massive open records requests.”
Mitch Kokai, a political analyst at the conservative John Locke Foundation, said it is unusual for a public university professor to be the subject of this kind of records request. Still, he said any public employee who chooses to be politically active should be aware of the possibility.
