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Fall 2012 In-House Clinics
Orientation for new students will be on Monday, August
27 at 4:00. The room will be announced. Please watch your
email for more information as the semester gets closer.
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Center for Open Government Blog
Voting in the Dark: Open Government
Under Siege in
Chicago Public Schools Elections for Local School Council
Members
June 1, 2012
When you enter the voting booth, how do you select who
will receive your vote if you have no information about
any of the candidates? Due to last-minute changes in Chicago
Public Schools’ (CPS) disclosure policy, members of the
public were unable to obtain information as basic as the
names of CPS’s Local School Council candidates prior to
the April 2012 elections. Local School Councils (LSC) are
elected bodies that play a critical role in Chicago’s public
schools, including approving budgets and evaluating the
school principals.
State law and CPS’s own policies require transparency.
The Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compels government
bodies such as CPS to provide the public with requested
information so they may “fulfill their duties of discussing
public issues fully and freely, making informed political
judgments and monitoring government to ensure that it is
being conducted in the public interest.” CPS’ own election
guide requires schools to provide candidate information
to anyone who requests to review these materials prior to
a LSC election. Yet, CPS, citing privacy concerns, made
an eleventh hour change to their own well-established policy
which denied access to individuals requesting to review
the LSC candidate information in person at the schools.
CPS could have simply redacted the private information
in the LSC materials (such as Social Security numbers) and
made available the rest of the file for public review. The
Center for Open Government, Welles Park Bulldog and others
urged CPS to do so in order to safeguard any confidential
information and provide open access to candidate information.
Instead, starting in March 2012, CPS reversed its own policy,
requiring anyone seeking information about LSC candidates
to file a public records (FOIA) request with the central
CPS office. Given the short period before the April election
and the typically long response time by CPS for public records
requests, this “solution” essentially prevented the public
and media from obtaining important information about LSC
candidates before the election.
CPS trampled on fundamental principles of democratic government
by placing unnecessary barriers to the dissemination of
LSC candidate information. Citizens were forced to go into
the voting booth completely in the dark to select the individuals
making policy decisions about their children’s education.
CPS must comply with its own policies and the FOIA law for
future elections. CPS needs to assure the public that future
LSC candidate information is readily available to anyone
who wants it. CPS needs to know that we want the lights
back on in the voting booth.
Prepared by Matthew Kennedy (IIT Chicago-Kent College
of Law, J.D. candidate) and Natalie Brouwer Potts (Executive
Director, Center for Open Government, IIT Chicago-Kent College
of Law).
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FLEISHMAN AWARD
We are pleased to announce that Aaron Davis and Michael
Johnson have been selected as the 2012 recipients of The
Fleischman Family Award for Excellence in Criminal Clinic.
The prize includes a $1,250 cash award to be made to each
of them.
Brothers Jack and Sidney Z. Fleischman, both members of
the Class of 1987, established this prize to recognize outstanding
second or third year Chicago Kent students who have excelled
in the Criminal Section of the Chicago-Kent Law Offices
program. Specifically, the Award is to be made at the end
of the academic year to the students who best achieve two
hallmarks of excellence: zealous advocacy on behalf of clients
of the Law Offices' Criminal Law Clinic, and dedication
to the Criminal Defense Litigation Program. In establishing
the Award, Jack and Sidney recognize the many contributions
made to Chicago's legal community by their grandfather,
the Honorable Phillip A. Fleischman, Cook County Circuit
Court, and their father, Marshall A. Fleischman, Esq.
Jack and Sidney are partners in their own criminal defense
firm, Fleischman & Fleischman, in Fort Lauderdale and
Palm Beach, Florida. Jack began his career with the Public
Defender's Office in Palm Beach County. Sid worked with
the Cook County and Broward County State's Attorney Offices
before entering private practice with Jack. Both participated
in the Criminal Law Clinic while attending Chicago-Kent.
For a complete description of all clinical programs, please
visit the Law Offices' Home Page at http:\\www.kentlaw.iit.edu/academics/jd-program/practical-skills-training/legal-clinics
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