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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A conservative group filed a legal action to obtain records related to a UCLA law professor the organization says is a proponent of critical race theory and has ``controversial'' views of America's borders and past colonization.
America First Legal Foundation brought the Los Angeles Superior Court petition Tuesday against the UC Regents and Robert Baldridge, UCLA's manager of records management and information practices. The petition focuses on UCLA School of Law Professor E. Tendayi Achiume, who since 2017 has also served as the United Nations' special reporter on contemporary forms of racism.
Last July, Secretary of State Antony Blinken invited Achiume and 22 other U.N. experts to make an official visit to study racism in the United States, the petition states.
``This invitation was controversial as Professor Achiume is a proponent of critical race theory and supports opening borders to all migrants to compensate for America's past colonization efforts,'' the petition states.
After Blinken's invitation, AFLF sent UCLA a request under the California Public Records Act for documents related to Blinken's invitation to Achiume, including emails with government and nonprofit/non-governmental organizations, communications between Achiume and ``certain government employees,'' records related to any investigation, analysis or work product
Achiume prepared regarding racism in the U.S., and communications between UCLA officials and such groups as Black Lives Matter and the ACLU, the petition states.
All the records requests were for the time periods of Nov. 1, 2020 to Aug. 10, 2021 and AFLF offered to provide information necessary to clarify the requests or narrow their scope, the suit states.
Baldridge responded last October by withholding most of the documents sought on grounds that they contain information about activities of university employees not ``substantively related to the conduct of University business'' and therefore do not constitute public records, the petition states.
Baldridge also said other documents were protected by attorney-client privilege as well as other ``unidentified federal laws,'' according to the petition.
While Baldridge did not refuse to produce the documents related to communications between UCLA officials and the various groups, he has yet to turn them over, the petition states.
``(AFLF) has tried to convince (the UC Regents) that their positions regarding the application of the CPRA to this situation lack merit,'' the petition states. ``Those efforts have not succeeded.''