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METROPOLITAN STATE FACULTY FEDERATION
March 31, 2008
Dear Colleagues:
Attached to this message you will find the MSFF’s lawyer’s response to the Disclosure and Authorization form for background checks, as sent to the college’s attorney, Lee Combs. The letter makes clear that the authorization demanded by the college administration is dangerously open-ended and without meaningful legal constraints. Our lawyer makes points that have so far not been addressed by the college administration about the risks inherent in such unlimited authorization.
The college has recently hired a firm called HireRight to conduct background checks on new employees and on faculty who are eligible for promotion. The proposed investigation goes far beyond the more traditional checking of criminal records and civil court actions. To protect themselves, HireRight thus requires that such employees sign a release that authorizes the company to investigate them. These investigations include but are explicitly not limited to, scrutiny of credit records and interviews with neighbors, associates, colleagues, and friends. You are required to authorize all of the following methods, and hence you are authorizing the use of anything else they may stumble upon:
The reports may contain information bearing on your character, general reputation, personal characteristics, mode of living and credit standing. The types of information that may be obtained include, but are not limited to: social security number verifications; credit reports; criminal records checks; public court records checks; driving records checks; educational records checks; employment verifications; personal and professional references checks; licensing and certification records checks; drug testing results; etc. The information contained in the reports will be obtained from private and public record sources, including, as appropriate, personal interviews with sources, such as neighbors, friends and associates.
The form also requires that you agree that such information may be collected for the duration of your employment at MSCD. There is nothing in the form that explicitly prohibits retention of the records beyond the faculty member’s employment at Metro.
At present, the college’s proposes to use this information to vet new candidates and those who are up for promotion. However, we see no safeguards against the program being extended to other employees at a later date, for example, during Post Tenure Review.
Concerned about the extent of the proposed investigations, the members of the Faculty Senate approved a carefully written motion on March 5. This motion was subsequently sent to the MSCD administration. It asks that the college discontinue the background checks until such time as the following points are implemented:
1. The College defines the purpose of the policy.
2. The policy definition has been used to detail or to describe what is generally disqualifying for specific positions at the College.
3. These derived specifics outline or identify what the College will do with the information and indicate how it will be used.
4. Revisions to the release form mirror or reflect the stated policies and purposes and the form is made less broad.
5. A mechanism is derived that will notify current employees before a background check is being conducted and make clear why it is merited.
6. Justification or explanation of why background investigations are required for all promotions at the college.
Despite the concerns of the Faculty Senate, and without publicly addressing the issues raised by that body, the MSCD office of Human Resources has already required that the unrevised form be sent to potential employees by their department chairs.
Various faculty asked the MSFF to contact our attorney for a legal opinion about the scope and legal dangers of the proposed investigations. We have done so in the spirit of shared governance, in defense of the role of the Faculty Senate, and for the sake of greater transparency in the administration’s decision making. As is implicit in the Senate’s resolution, we suggest that many of the proposed investigations have no relevance to employment at Metro State, (or any academic institution), but constitute nothing more than a fishing expedition. Interviews with friends, neighbors and colleagues tend to yield gossip not substantiated facts, and gossip and rumor are not the basis for reliable employment decisions, especially in a setting of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas.
For the MSFF:
Ellen A. Slatkin
President
Timothy Gould
Chair, Legal Committee
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