BUZZ
Says FOIA requests ‘are essential tools in a democratic society,’ but are ‘disproportionately targeting’ certain fields
The director of Morgan State University’s Institute for Urban Research implored a school vice president to “do the right thing and not the white thing” regarding a Maryland Public Information Act request from a conservative stay-at-home mother.
That mom is Nicole Solas, formerly an Independent Women’s Forum senior fellow who earlier this year had sent a public records request to Morgan State regarding Professor Stacey Patton, a research associate at the institute and professor at Howard University.
Patton had written on her Substack about Austin Metcalf, who was stabbed to death at a track meet in April by Karmelo Anthony. Metcalf is white, Anthony black.
Anthony ended up being convicted of murder, but had claimed self-defense by alleging Metcalf had pushed him during an argument.
Patton alleged Metcalf’s father had “failed” his now-dead son because he did not teach him about black kids’ “boundaries.”
“YOU failed to teach your boy that Black children have boundaries,” Patton wrote. “YOU failed teach humility, restraint, or the sacred fact that another person’s body is not your jurisdiction.”
Solas told The College Fix via direct message on X she had no idea who Patton was until Rhode Island School Committee member Jennifer Lima supportively reposted the professor’s comments (and then backtracked, sort of):
On Thursday, Solas posted on X that one of the documents she ended up receiving shows that Patton’s supervisor, Raymond Winbush, complained in an email to Morgan State VP for State & Federal Relations Don-Terry Veal that Solas was “misusing” the Maryland Public Information Act, or MPIA, in “her campaign against Dr. Patton.”
According to his faculty page, Winbush is a “scholar and activist […] known for his systems-thinking approaches to understanding the impact of racism/white supremacy on the global African community.”
MORE: AI could stop the endless delays for FOIA requests
Winbush wrote that “public transparency laws are essential tools in a democratic society, but when they are deployed selectively against individual scholars, they can become instruments of intimidation rather than accountability.”
He accused Solas of “disproportionately targeting” academics in the fields of “inequality, racism, gender oppression,” and “marginalized communities,” and noted he had “publicly warned” such “attacks” would “not stop with predominately white institutions.”
Winbush continued:
Dr. Patton deserves the full support of Morgan State and of all who believe in the principles of free inquiry, intellectual courage, and the protection of scholars from politically motivated harassment. If we fail to defend those who are targeted today, we should not be surprised when others are targeted tomorrow.
The director concluded by saying “We must all do the right thing and not the white thing” (emphasis in the original).
Another email shows VP Veal had offered to meet with Winbush, but the professor “respectfully declined.” In the message, Winbush also suggested Patton’s latest book “will undoubtedly provoke renewed criticism from many of the same individuals and organizations now attempting to challenge her work.”
Solas told The Fix the only “misuse” of the MPIA is on Morgan State’s part:
[The university] violated the statutory deadline to produce records on the basis that someone had a death in the family. Now that I see emails illustrating possible retaliation against me personally for petitioning a government agency I seriously question the veracity of their basis for violating the MPIA.
If Patton doesn’t want her work investigated with public records requests then she shouldn’t behave in such a deplorable manner that naturally makes the public question how she spends her time on a public university’s dime.
This outsized reaction to my personal profile and targeting of me is due to the 2021 teachers union NEA RI lawsuit branding me as “harrassing” education institutions with my legitimate and perfectly legal inquiries into their controversial pedagogies. The teachers union intent was to stop my public records requests and it appears that is also the intent of Professor Winbush at Morgan State University.
In the past, Patton suggested that Charlie Kirk had “paid [the] price” for his support of the Second Amendment, and that comedians’ racial jokes could inspire violence against minorities.
MORE: Virginia bill would let colleges easily block routine FOIA requests
