Texas Attorney General Opinion: JM-1112 Page: 2 of 8
This text is part of the collection entitled: Texas Attorney General Opinions and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.
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Honorable Bob McFarland - Page 2
notice of the "date, hour, subject, and place" of its
meetings. id. 3A(a). The notice must specifically
disclose the subjects to be considered at the upcoming
meeting, including subjects slated for discussion in
executive session. Cox Enterprises v. Board of Trustees of
Austin Indep. School Dist., 706 S.W.2d 956 (Tex. 1986);
Attorney General Opinion H-1045 (1977).
You inform us that the Arlington Independent School
District states notice for an employee grievance as follows:
Grievance of (name of employee).
Some associations of school district employees suggest
that the notice should not identify the employee by name,
because naming the employee "creates a chilling effect which
discourages employees from bringing forward their appeal to
the board of trustees." They suggest that the written
notice of the subject matter should state only the title of
the employee, for example:
Grievance of teacher.
It has also been suggested the written notice of the
subject matter should include the subject matter of the
grievance, for example:
Grievance of (name or title of employee)
relating to appeal of a written reprimand.
You ask us how specific the notice of an executive
session must be under the circumstances you have described,
in particular, whether the notice must contain the name of
the aggrieved employee and the specific nature of the
grievance.
We will first deal with the suggestion that inclusion
of the employee's name in the notice creates a "chilling
effect." You do not identify any statute or constitutional
provision that would prevent a governmental body from
identifying the employee in the notice.1 A brief submitted
i. The "chilling effect" refers to statutes that
"chill" First Amendment free speech rights because they are
vague or overbroad. 1 Levy, Karst, Mahoney, Encyclopedia of
the American Constitution, Chilling Effect, at 249.p. 5831
(JM-1112)
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: JM-1112, text, November 3, 1989; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth273550/m1/2/?q=%22Government+and+Law+-+Elected+Officials+-+Attorneys+General%22: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.