Dear Mr. White:

This letter is in response to your letter, addressed to me, dated 26 September 2001, in answer to my letter, dated 20 September 2001, in which I ask the University’s "office of Information Technology, and any other appropriate office or officer, to let me and my representatives inspect the e-mail messages" sent by a faculty member, Mike Adams, with the use of the University’s central computing facilities and services, from the address: adamsm@uncwil.edu, from September 15 to September 18, in accordance with the Public Records Law of the State of North Carolina. You state, in your response, your opinion that these e-mail messages "are either not public records or are protected from disclosure by the personnel records exception to the Public Records Act or by the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act." I believe these records are public records and are not protected by either Act you cite.

1. You cite the Public Records Act, which defines a public record as "all documents, papers, letters," etc., "regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions." This would seem to include any and every e-mail sent by an employee of the University, from a University e-mail address, with the use of the University’s central computing facilities and services. But you claim that Adams, while "an employee of the State," sent me an abusive e-mail message as "an expression of personal opinion in connection with a general public discourse." This claim ignores the fact that Adams sent me his e-mail letter in response to the e-mail letter I sent him, dated 15 September 2001, which I addressed "To the students and faculty of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington." I addressed him as a faculty member. I had a course with him last year. He well knew he had received this letter from a student. (A note: Adams explicitly refused in his message to participate in a public discourse. He instead reviled me with a series of abusive epithets. He offered no evidence and no argument in support of these abusive names. Name-calling is the nullification of discourse.) You conclude that Adams, in his e-mail letter to me, "was not speaking in his official role as a faculty member," and was "not transacting public business on behalf of the State of North Carolina." Your definition of the "official role" and "public business" of a University faculty member is arbitrary, tendentious and unduly narrow. For example: It omits the role of a faculty member in furtherance of the "appropriate opportunities and conditions" of the freedom to learn "in the classroom, on the campus, and in the larger community" (UNCW Faculty Handbook, IV.A.15).
2. You cite "UNCW’s Computing Resource Use Policy [which] expressly permits occasional personal use of the computer network by faculty, staff, and students where not in conflict with the dominant purposes for which the network was established." But this policy also states that such "occasional, brief personal uses are permissible" if and only if this "use does not harm or invade the rights of others." I believe I have a right, as a student at this University, not to be sent abusive e-mail messages, by a member of the faculty, with the use of the University’s central computing facilities and services. The University’s Computing Resource Use Policy expressly prohibits Adams’ personal use of the computer network to send me abusive messages in violation of my rights.
3. You further cite the University’s Computing Resource Use Policy, which "recognizes the value and potential of publishing on the Internet, and so allows and encourages students, staff, and faculty to do so consistent with this policy." Adams’ abusive letter is hardly "publishing on the Internet" in the sense clearly intended in the policy. An e-mail letter is not a "personal page." Furthermore: his letter is inconsistent with the policy, inasmuch as it harms my right not to receive such abusive communications. (Another note: if e-mail correspondence is "publishing on the Internet," it has to be publicly available.)
4. You claim the e-mail messages I wish to inspect are "protected from disclosure by the personnel records exception to the Public Records Act." This claim is false. I have not asked to see any personnel records.
5. You also claim the e-mail messages I wish to inspect are protected from disclosure "by the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act." This claim is false. FERPA has to do with the privacy of education records. I have not asked to see any education records.
6. You claim the e-mail messages I wish to inspect "are personal, and thus the property of a private person as set forth in GS 132-1.2 (2)." This section of the Public Records Act is irrelevant to your claim. It has only to do with "trade secrets." I have not asked to see any trade secrets.

Your opinion in this case is based on irrelevant laws, misinterpreted policies, and arbitrary definitions. Therefore, I continue to ask the Office of Information Technology, and any other appropriate office or officer, to let me and my representatives inspect the e-mail messages Mike Adams sent, with the use of the University’s central computing facilities and services, from the address: adamsm@uncwil.edu, from September 15 to September 18, as public business, in accordance with the Public Records Law of the State of North Carolina.

Rosa T. Fuller

October 1, 2001