My concerns about this provision arise out of my unusual expertise in matters of public disclosure of government files. Prior to law school, I spent a decade as a reporter with Associated Press and with a venerable alternative newspaper known as Maine Times. In those capacities, I considered it part of my job to be regularly making formal records requests of government officials. Following law school, I worked at the federal district court in Maine and was involved in resolving a Freedom of Information Act dispute that involved a federal agency that proved to be deliberately withholding information that was embarrassing to the agency. Most recently, I served as the general counsel of a state agency in New Hampshire, where one of my responsibilities was compliance with that state’s open-records law. That law required me to balance the public’s interest in disclosure against the privacy interests of persons (both animate and inanimate) referenced in the documents. It is a responsibility I took very seriously.

In my respectful opinion, that balance would be tipped improvidently by the proposed exception to Vermont’s open records law. One can certainly understand why the University of Vermont and other state-supported educational institutions would want information about donors to remain secret — public disclosure, obviously, can only make the job of gathering such donations at least somewhat more difficult. And one can also understand why some donors would want their status as benefactors to remain undisclosed — philanthropy is very personal to most people and, as a culture, we are generally skittish about public discussion of individuals’ financial matters. But the public’s interest in disclosure is quite high in these circumstances — as it would be in any situation where an instrumentality of government is partly financed via the public fisc and partly paid for with private money. Taxpayers, in essence, ought to know who its partners are — that, in my view, tips the balance in favor of disclosure.

One does not need to be a cynic to conclude that any institution that accepts private donations will be tempted to pay special attention to the views of those donors. In the case of educational institutions, these influences can run the gamut, from overall organizational priorities to personnel determinations to decisions on admissions applications. Presumably, the leaders of these institutions have promised they are impervious to any undue influence that donors might seek to exert. This is quite probably so — but the whole purpose of sunshine laws is to allow the public to assure itself that government officials are doing what they have promised to do. “Trust — but verify,” as President Reagan was fond of suggesting in somewhat similar circumstances.

Even if an exemption from public disclosure were justified here, the relevant provision could and should be much more narrowly tailored. Existing law already allows for the redaction of certain personal information from publicly disclosed government documents, but it might be reasonable to make clear as a matter of Vermont law that donors will not, by virtue of that status, find that their personal, marital, familial, financial, tax, estate planning, or gift planning information become matters of public record. Unfortunately, the amendment as drafted is far broader than that.

Part of my current responsibilities, at Vermont Law School, is teaching administrative law. A key component of that course, as I present it, is the law governing open meetings and public disclosure of government documents. I impress upon my students the importance of these laws as public policy in a democracy, and I insist that my students emerge with a working knowledge of both ‘sunshine’ law and its purposes. I tell my students that Vermont is, and should be, extremely parsimonious when it comes to granting exemptions to government openness. I strongly urge you to maintain that stance and reject the pending amendment, at least in its present form.

Vermont’s Legislature would do well to continue allowing the acceptance of anonymous private donations to the University of Vermont and to the Vermont State College System.