WHY VCU MUST REJECT A CONFIDENTIALITY CLAUSE REQUIRING THAT THE CONTRACT, ITS EXISTENCE, AND/OR ITS TERMS BE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL:

VCU is an instrumentality of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and as such is subject to Virginia's Freedom of Information (FOI) Act [§§ 2.2-3700 --  -3714, Code of Virginia].  The Act is to "ensure to the people of this Commonwealth ready access to records in the custody of public officials".  The Attorney General's office instructs that the existence and content of agreements executed with state entities are financial or administrative records which should be available on request, and that some information in regard to each contract will be publishable routinely in the process of that entity's conduct of business even without an FOI request.

However, the exception to FOI at § 2.2-3705(A.)(20.) explicitly excludes from FOI access the results of study or research at state institutions of higher learning until such results have been publicly released, published, copyrighted or patented.

In short, the agreement for a study itself is available upon request, but the technical results of the study are exempt from FOI access.   Also, the proprietary and confidential material shared with VCU related to technical matters of the project are protected from FOI access if they are adequately marked as proprietary and confidential.





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