FORT WORTH, TX—The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the SMU Dedman School of Law First Amendment Clinic today filed a lawsuit seeking records related to a Texas school district’s use of AI-powered technology to restrict and monitor students’ activity on school-issued devices. The use of surveillance systems in schools undermines the privacy and free expression rights of students, the Knight Institute argues. 

“The lack of transparency around the use of surveillance systems in schools is particularly concerning in a moment marked by an unprecedented, authoritarian assault on public education, which includes the suppression of history and dissent,” said Jennifer Jones, staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “We’re asking the Texas school district to release records pertaining to the monitoring software they use and the type of content they gather so we can determine how these systems are being used–or misused.”

In 2023, the Knight Institute submitted a request under the Texas Public Information Act to the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District, seeking records related to the district’s use of surveillance systems to monitor students’ school-issued devices and software. The district has refused to produce this information in full.

“Texas public records law has long been clear that it is not the government’s role to decide what is good for the people to know,” said Peter Steffensen, assistant director of the First Amendment Clinic at SMU Dedman School of Law. “That should hold especially true for government records, like the ones the district has fought to keep secret, that implicate our basic liberties and the basic liberties of our children.”

Read today’s petition here.

Read more about the case here.

Lawyers on the case include Jones, Katie Fallow, and Allie Schiele for the Knight First Amendment Institute. They are joined by co-counsel Peter Steffensen and Thomas S. Leatherbury of the First Amendment Clinic at SMU Dedman School of Law. 

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected]