Dive Brief:
- U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill is calling on the American Council on Education to provide copies of a webinar the lobbying group sponsored, focusing on how higher ed institutions should approach her campus sexual violence survey.
- McCaskill, a Democrat who is drafting legislation to combat sexual assault on campuses, sent a letter Thursday asking for either the presentation or a legal justification for refusing to hand it over, Inside Higher Ed reported.
- McCaskill has accused the group of interfering with her information collection efforts with the online PowerPoint presentation, conducted by a Washington, D.C., law firm it hired. She is also seeking a list of institutions that participated.
Dive Insight:
Does the American Council on Education really want to antagonize a senator who is drafting legislation for its industry, even if that legislation probably has little chance of passing in the sharply divided Congress? While the group says the webinar did not discourage colleges from responding to McCaskill’s survey, if the presentation was completely innocuous, it probably would have simply handed over the materials. The group’s general counsel, Ada Meloy, says McCaskill’s request is an intrusion on the colleges’ “rights to association.”