Week in Review: Mystery Solved

It was a mystery.

When the University of Arizona suddenly cut ties with popular professor Dan Grossenbach and offered vague explanations that didn’t add up, he suspected the public university had canned him for being a conservative. But he couldn’t prove it because officials were hiding public records that might reveal their motivations.

More than six months later, Dan is finally getting answers after the Goldwater Institute’s American Freedom Network of pro bono attorneys demanded the school turn over internal emails they were concealing—emails that show Dan received significant flak over his conservative beliefs.

Goldwater will always protect citizens’ access to public records from government-run institutions through direct litigation, public records trainings, and more—because Americans have a right to know what their government is up to.

Read more here. 

Back to Work

For union president Frank Piccioli, whose salary is paid by taxpayers, a new decision by the Arizona Supreme Court means he actually has to go back to work for the city of Phoenix.

Piccioli used to be a 911 dispatcher, but for years he has benefitted from “release time,” which allows public-sector union bosses to collect a paycheck from taxpayers for a city job, while actually doing work to benefit the union—full time. After Goldwater sued the city of Phoenix, the Arizona Supreme Court struck down release time as unconstitutional, the first time a state supreme court has done so. Other courts and policymakers should take notice. And union bosses like Piccioli should get back to work in the jobs they were hired to perform.

Read more here. 

Liberty Movement, 12 States Back Goldwater’s Fight for Parental Rights

Maine mom Amber Lavigne was outraged to learn that a public-school counselor had secretly advised her 13-year-old daughter about gender transitioning—and told the child she didn’t need to tell her parents.

With Goldwater’s assistance, Amber is suing school officials for violating her constitutionally protected parental rights. And now, high-profile organizations in the liberty movement and the attorneys general of 12 states are joining the fight and rallying to our side, filing briefs urging the First Circuit Court of Appeals to protect Amber’s freedoms.

We pledge to never back down in the battle to protect parents’ right to direct their children’s education and upbringing. After all, parents cannot make informed child-rearing decisions if public schools are hiding vital information from them.

Read more here.