How can you tell when an Aggie policy is absurd?

   Dan Malone was a reporter for most of the Dallas, Fort Worth newspaper, where he built his work mostly around the Texas Public Information Act, now is a journalism instructor at Tarleton State University. He is teaching his students how to get public information.
   Texas A&M system governors Tarleton are saying that this could be a firing offense, because faculty members are not suppose to direct students to request public information from any system component. However, students in the A&M System can file open records requests on their own. Also a faculty member is allowed file a request as a private citizen, but cannot tell a student to request to open a files that is paying for an education.
    This conflicts with the letter and spirit of the 1973 Texas Public Information Act.
Tarleton State President F. Dominic Dottavio took the novel step of asking the A&M System's general counsel whether an instructor could direct students to use the law at all. Of course the answer was NO. This is unless the students are requesting records from UT or Texas Tech.
  A professor in the A&M System could be fired for assigning students to ask for the general counsel's letter to Dottavio, even though it could inform classroom debate of absurd public policies. The Austin American-Statesman reported that the rule behind the policy dates to 1997. That's well before the 2006 Tarleton news release touting Malone's hiring, saying he'd help the school's journalism program "significantly."
Also before the U.S. Education Department fined Tarleton $27,500 for not accurately reporting campus crime, a problem exposed when one of Malone's students in 2006 sought after records required under the federal Clery Act.
   There is probably an Aggie joke in this business somewhere. However, not to funny.
Tarleton and the A&M System could defiantly correct these issues to open government. It would be smart for the Legislature to help these students out by allowing them to be able to there research by being able to open records as well for the teachers to assist them.