Southampton County Board of Supervisors Chairman Dr. Alan W. Edwards reported Tuesday, April 1, that the board was filing suit against the Southampton County School Board and school division superintendent due to a reported lack of response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Edwards noted that the decision to file the lawsuit came at the Board of Supervisors’ (BOS) March 25 meeting. He indicated that Southampton County Public Schools was given five days’ notice and that the lawsuit would be filed in Southampton County General District Court on Wednesday, April 2. Edwards said 17 FOIA requests had been submitted to SCPS as of April 1, “and they’ve not responded to any of them.”

Three federal grants for the Library of Virginia have been terminated, eliminating funding that went toward digitizing 100,000 pages of historical Virginia newspapers. The Richmond-based library, located at 800 E. Broad St., was notified by the National Endowment for the Humanities that the cuts were effective as of last Thursday. Digitized World War II separation notices and a new exhibition featuring Richmond’s Jackson Ward neighborhood were also covered under the grants.

Background: At issue on appeal is whether New York’s Freedom of Information Law’s personal privacy exemption provides a basis for agencies to categorically withhold all disciplinary records relating to complaints against law enforcement officers that were not deemed substantiated.
Ruling: The Court of Appeals held that there is no categorical or blanket privacy exemption for records relating to complaints against law officers that are not deemed substantiated. The court noted that the amendments to the law included a definition of law enforcement disciplinary records that expressly encompassed complaints levied against officers in furtherance of law enforcement disciplinary proceeding. The law requires an agency to evaluate each record individually and determine whether a particularized and specific justification exists for denying access on the ground that disclosure of all or part of the record would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy.

A federal judge ordered the White House on Tuesday to restore The Associated Press’ full access to cover presidential events, affirming on First Amendment grounds that the government cannot punish the news organization for the content of its speech. U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that the government can’t retaliate against the AP’s decision not to follow the president’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico.