U. California Regents Bar Filmmaker, Drawing Protests
A documentary filmmaker was barred from bringing his camera into a public meeting of the University of California's regents, and a state senator wants to know why.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the filmmaker, Ric Chavez, did not know that state law allows anyone to film public meetings of state bodies. He e-mailed UC's public information office for permission to film Thursday's meeting and was shut out because he had no press credential.
Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat from San Francisco who chairs the Senate's committee on Public Records and Open Meetings Laws, wrote to UC President Mark Yudof asking why university policy "is in complete contradiction to state law." Liz Enochs, president of the Society of Professional Journalists' Northern California chapter, also wrote--in her