On Thursday, we explained to our readers how a University of Northern Iowa professor called Rachel Morgan had put in a communication to students that she would only meet with “masked and vaccinated” students in her office. Students who did not want to wear a mask and hadn’t received the vaccine would need to meet with her remotely via Zoom.
Now, we had only seen a screenshot of this communication and it wasn’t dated. So on Aug. 26, we sent an email to Morgan asking if that was still her policy, if it ever was her policy and why she would utilize such a policy.
She never responded.
We submitted an open records request to UNI asking for copies of public records from Morgan to her students for the 2024-25 academic year. We noted specifically the course syllabus and other instructions to her students.
The university responded it reviewed the request and estimated a cost of $90 for extraction, review and redaction.
The Iowa Standard believed that would be a waste of time, so we clarified we were only looking for records that included the words “mask,” “masked” or “vaccinated.”
UNI responded that the four-hour estimate would still be necessary and, for the first time, said a syllabus is considered to be copyrighted property of the instructor and would require prior authorization for release.
“Because Morgan owns the copyright to the syllabi documents that were created for her courses and she has not authorized the sharing of the course syllabi, these would also need to be redacted from any data retrieved through the searches,” the university claimed.
So things seemed as though they were being withheld. Which prompted The Iowa Standard to publish what we knew to be true along with the questions we believed deserved answers.
UNI contacted us and let us know it talked with Morgan and the communication that was shared was from 2021 and she no longer has such a policy.
That led us to believe the information wasn’t included in the 2024-25 syllabus. But it turns out the communication was included in information provided to 2024-25 students.
We found out hours later that Morgan claimed she “accidentally” copied and pasted the information from a previous syllabus.
We also heard that Morgan told the class about a reporter asking her about it. That’s when she told students it was an “accidental” copy and paste.
It’s fair to wonder if this information was “accidentally” included in 2022-23 and 2023-24. It’s also fair to wonder if it was, if any student(s) received the shot due to this requirement to meet in-person with Morgan.
It’s fair to wonder why UNI didn’t acknowledge the communication was indeed from 2024-25 communication — in addition to 2021 as the university said.
Perhaps the university should review all syllabi of its professors to ensure this isn’t “accidentally” happening in other courses. It should be quite concerning that it happened in this case. Perhaps an immediate review of all syllabi is in order.
