Latest news with #Kautsch
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kansas Senate efficiency committee justifies slow response to open records request
Gordon Self, a legislative staff member working with the Senate Committee on Government Efficiency, explained how the Kansas Open Records Act process works. (Morgan Chilson/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate Committee on Government Efficiency spent the first minutes of its Tuesday meeting explaining why it delayed release of messages to news organizations, defying Kansas Open Records Act requirements. Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican and chairwoman of COGE, said news articles had been written about the subject, and she felt it was important for the committee to hear what occurred. Max Kautsch, a First Amendment rights and open government attorney, said COGE failed to meet requirements laid out in the law, specifically that records should be made available as soon as possible. Kansas Reflector made an open records request to access submissions to the COGE portal and email address. The records were not released for more than two months after the request, although Sen. Patrick Schmidt made a KORA request for those records and received them well before that. KORA requires records be made available within three business days or as soon as possible. The two-month timeline could have met KORA requirements if, as the law requires, there had been a 'detailed explanation of the cause for further delay,' Kautsch said. Gordon Self, a legislative staff member who specializes in statutes, said the portal where people could submit suggestions for COGE indicated those 'may be' public records. When KORA requests were received, there were concerns the submissions might contain protected or confidential information, such as Social Security numbers or personal health information, he said. To complete a submission on the COGE portal, a checkbox requires that the individual acknowledge the records are public records and subject to the law. 'Once the KORA requests were received and a response was made, there was a review of the records, all 2,000, to determine if any of the records did contain information,' Self said. 'After a thorough review, there were some identified that did have some sensitive information in them.' That information was redacted, he said. Kansas Reflector received a copy of the emails from an unnamed source before the KORA request was fulfilled. The official copy received later showed few redactions and most appeared to be names, addresses and phone numbers. The Reflector's request yielded disclosures of more than 1,600 submissions that Kansans had made to the portal, Kautsch said. The names and contact information for just 55 submitters were redacted, while the names and contact information for 1,500-plus Kansans were disclosed. 'I thought it was important because there's been a lot of articles and things out on social media – I thought it was important that this committee hear the process, the rationale for the process,' Erickson said after Self's presentation. 'At the end of the day, there are none that have been deleted, there are none that are not available for review. But as was said, we wanted to make sure that we were not including information that was not appropriate for such a situation.'
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
University of Kansas students protest the firing of proctor who spoke about housing policy change
University of Kansas students protest April 2, 2025, in response to the elimination of gender-inclusive housing assignments for the fall semester. (Maya Smith for Kansas Reflector) LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Housing fired scholarship hall proctor Anthony Alvarez after he spoke to the media and refused to intervene in protests against the elimination of gender-inclusive housing. Students and residents of Grace Pearson Scholarship Hall launched a new protest Wednesday in front of Strong Hall to stand in solidarity with Alvarez. Alvarez expressed little regret for participating in actions that led to his termination even though he can no longer live in the hall. He intends to keep protesting KU Housing's decision. 'I can't live in the place where I foster community,' he said. 'I didn't do this for the money. I did this for my community. It is very, very hurtful. But I am thankful for the amount of support I have received.' KU Housing did not respond to email or phone calls seeking comment. Alvarez was put on probation March 13 after a meeting with housing staff. In a letter obtained by Kansas Reflector, Emily Chellgren, KU Housing assistant director, said he violated policy by speaking to news media instead of forwarding the request to his supervisor 'despite knowing job expectations prohibited (him) from doing so.' Kansas Reflector interviewed Alvarez for a March 4 story about students protesting the decision to eliminate gender-inclusive housing. Alvarez was terminated March 14 after staff were made aware via security footage that he helped residents hang a banner outside of Grace Pearson rather than addressing the situation with residents and filing an incident report. His termination letter, also obtained by Kansas Reflector, noted he was already on probation for speaking with a reporter. 'I think it's a bad sign that for infractions as little as this, you could get fired and kicked out and very quickly find yourself in a position where you have to find a place to live,' Alvarez said. 'This makes it so that these undergrad students really feel the necessity to enforce policy that they may consider to be unjust or discriminatory.' According to an article published by the University Daily Kansan, eight residents and proctors of Grace Pearson spoke to the press under anonymity. No other proctors have been put on probation. First Amendment lawyer Max Kautsch said because there's no evidence of other proctors being put on probation for speaking to the press, KU Housing didn't violate Alvarez' free speech rights. But Kautsch said the university should be cautious of how it handles the situation going forward. 'The First Amendment's been implicated, but to the extent there's a violation, the facts right now don't necessarily lend itself to that,' Kautsch said. 'It's the kind of thing if you're the university, you got be conscious of.' The protest Wednesday brought both Grace Pearson residents and other KU students together to protest in front of Strong Hall for nearly five hours. For student Leah Johnson, protecting the Grace Pearson community is key to the trans community at KU. 'As a trans person myself, gender-inclusive assignments are extremely important to me,' Johnson said. 'Removing this is clearly a targeted action against trans communities that I will not stand for.' Along with two protests, residents have taken to using sticky notes on their windows, creating messages like 'GP for GIA' and 'Keep GP Safe.' Banners hung in the hall by residents continue to be taken down by staff, seen in videos posted by residents. 'I'm choosing to protest because I think that it is a terrible decision to restrict gender inclusive assignments and to try to enforce gendered bathrooms,' said Michael Wieber, hall president. 'I think it's downright fascist, the idea of only certain people can use a bathroom, or we need to check your gender.' According to the KU Housing handbook, decorations on windows should 'generally be directed to the interior of the room.' Many residents with sticky notes in their windows were emailed this week by Housing notifying them they would be required to attend university conduct meetings in the next week. Some students plan to continue protests and make their voices heard. Unlike scholarship hall proctors, residents including Wieber do not have restrictions on speaking to the press. 'We're trying to get anything from KU,' Wieber said. 'It's effectively been two months where we've gotten radio silence from KU housing. It's very clear that Grace Pearson doesn't like the messages.'
