The Issue at a Glance

Two Cheers for the Freedom of Information Act (10.1007/s12129-016-9545-0)

George R. La Noue, University of Maryland Baltimore County

“Nobody likes someone looking over his shoulder, but universities should be models of transparency and accountability,” George R. La Noue writes in the first entry of our special section on the Freedom of Information Act, “FOIA—Friend and Foe.” Faculty research may rightfully be subject to the scrutiny of other researchers and those the research conclusions affect. La Noue examines the pros and cons of FOIA and concludes that “societal interests weigh heavily in the preservation of the FOIA option in and out of the academy.”

The University vs. Academic Freedom (10.1007/s12129-016-9548-x)

David R. Legates, University of Delaware

Despite FOIA’s express purpose to ensure transparency and accountability, in David R. Legates’s experience, left-wing activists have used FOIA “to manufacture