LSP staff members have spent the past two weeks sorting through over 2,000 University of Minnesota documents related to the Troubled Waters controversy. Now it’s your turn to do some reading. In the spirit of further shining a public light on that frightening black hole called institutional censorship, we’ve posted several hundred of the most compelling documents on our website for all to see.
Last week this blog provided an analysis of how key e-mails show U officials were willing to bend over backwards when it came to making sure this film didn’t offend corporate agriculture. That analysis covered only a tiny fraction of all the correspondence generated by the Troubled Waters blow-up.
Now LSP has organized hundreds of the documents chronologically and also by selected topics. All are pdf documents that are capable of being searched by keywords or phrases. Happy reading:
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All Docs: A comprehensive set of e-mails in chronological order from Aug. 10 to Oct. 2, 2010. Click here to download this file (338 pages; 7.3 MB).
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Key Docs: Select subset of key e-mails from the larger group above in chronological order ranging from Aug. 10 to Oct. 2, 2010. Click here to download this file (121 pages; 2.4 MB).
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Himle Docs: These are U of M vice-president Karen Himle’s e-mails related to the film. Note: you will see that text has been redacted from several of the e-mails. Click here to download this file (42 pages; 834 KB).
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Bruininks Docs: These are U of M President Robert Bruininks’ e-mails related to the film. Click here to download this file (6 pages; 165 KB).
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Levine Docs: These are Troubled Waters-related e-mails from Al Levine, Dean of the U of M’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. Click here to download this file (45 pages; 748 KB).
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Duncanson Docs: Exchange about the film between Al Levine and Kristin Weeks Ducanson, vice chair of the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council’s board of directors. Click here to download this file (23 pages; 688 KB).
As we noted above, several of the e-mails have had text removed with no explanation provided. Yesterday, LSP sent a letter to the U of M Office of the General Counsel requesting the redacted information be made public or that in each case U of M officials cite the applicable law or temporary classification that prevents the data from being made public as required by the Minnesota Data Practices Act.
Stay tuned…