Teacher Salaries Public Information?

The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a Cheyenne school district must disclose their teaches' salaries to the local newspaper.  The case can be found here Laramie County School District 1 v. Cheyenne Newspapers, Inc.

The Executive Editor of the paper said "There was never a doubt in our minds that the salaries and the names are public information." The newspaper thinks that this information will be useful information that the public can use to see how much teachers are being paid and what it takes to raise their pay levels. 

The school district is going to comply with the ruling but they don't agree with it. The district had already given out information on how much teachers and employees made but without releasing names. The superintendent said ""The request to produce all of our employees by name, with their current salaries, and so on, is a request that we felt could put some of our employees in jeopardy."

Justice Michale Golden said in his decision that "the public has a right to know how a governmental entity expends public funds."

This case I do not understand. If Justice Golden thinks the public has a right to know how money is being spent, why can't they know without names being released? What is the difference if employee 3473 is making $35,000 or if old Miss. Johnson the English teacher is? The School district did put up a weak defense saying that releasing the information could be dangerous for employees who may have a stalker (seriously that was their defense). I think there cold be an easy argument for privacy protection for these employees, and how the same information would be useful without names being attached.

Drug Miners

In light of the reading assignment for this week I did a little more research into the topic and found there to be a very recent case on the matter. As we have learned pharmacies sell prescription information to data mining companies who make sense of the information an then sell it on to drug companies and the drug companies in turn use it to sell the public drugs.

Vermont passed a law in 2007 that forbids companies from mining drug prescription records for marketing purposes. The First Circuit Court of Appeals held this law to be constitutional. Vermont won at the Federal Court, but lost at the Appellate level, the court said it violated the First Amendment. The Supreme Court accepted the appeal to this case on January 7 of this year. 

The SCOTUS blog put this issue into plain english:

Plain English Issue: Pharmacies collect data regarding what drugs doctors prescribe to their patients, and make that data publicly available (with patient identifying information redacted) for various uses. Does the First Amendment permit a state to prohibit drug manufacturers from using that data to market drugs to doctors? ( http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sorrell-v-ims-health-inc/)

Prescription records typically list the name of the doctor and the medications prescribed, these records also include other identifiers such as date of birth, gender and zip code which can be used to re-identify patients. This means that companies can easily search within patients records and obtain deeply private and sensitive information without their consent.  Data mining companies argue that putting limits on the use of drug prescriber information infringes on their rights of commercial free speech. 

The way this case is decided will have an enormous effect on drug companies and data miners. The physicians side is hoping that this information is kept private and arguing that this is a case of medical privacy. The drug companies are arguing that this is a case of commercial speech. The way this case turns out will be really interesting. If the Court views that prescription information is much like medical records and could be protected by HIPAA as medical records are. But if this is public information then it should be allowed to be collected by data mining companies and sold to drug companies.

I feel that a middle of the line solution would be best where some of this information could still be accessed by data miners and sold to drug companies but it would not be so identifiable that information could be used to track an individual. This case will be heard by the Supreme Court  on April 26, 2011 and however this case is decided it will have a huge impact on one of our country's biggest industries.

Be Happy, Not Gay?

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling about two high school students in Chicago wearing controversial shirts at their high school. One student, Heidi Zamecnik, wore a shirt that said "Be Happy, Not Gay." She also chose to wear it one day after a "Day of Silence," a day designed to bring attention to the harassment of homosexual students.

A three-judge panel decided in the case that a school that "permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality." The judges went on to say the school hadn't proved that the shirt caused a substantial disruption and that the words on the shirt weren't "fighting words."

I thought the ruling on this case was ridiculous. I think schools, especially public high schools, should be held to a different standard. I know from my experience that my schools would always tell me what was appropriate to wear or not to wear and that's what I went along with. I would often wear "Dr. McGillicuddy's", the schnapps maker, attire because it was my last name and its delicious and I would get told to turn it inside out. Now that is just a shirt with an alcohol brand on it, these students are going out of their way to make a statement. Outside of school they can wear whatever shirt they like but inside of a high school, especially with the problems we have with violence in schools, there should be rules.

I also don't see how the school couldn't point to their rules of conduct or the student handbook to make the wearing of offensive attire against the rules. I have a feeling the school would act differently if a student wore a "Be White, Not Black" shirt the day after Martin Luther King day. Would the ruling be the same since its not "fighting words" and a school that "permits advocacy of the rights of black students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of black students."I might be going a little to far with that example but I think it makes my point. I just feel what should be allowed in school should be different then what is allowed outside of school. If you have a differing opinion please let me know.

Bobby McFerrin wants everyone to happy