wa-law.org > bill > 2025-26 > HB 1949 > Original Bill
The legislature finds that:
In the course of their professional duties, faculty are asked and expected to provide candid advice or recommendations in a number of settings. These include peer reviews of articles or book manuscripts submitted to journal editors or scholarly presses and critiques of research proposals submitted to federal or other research funding agencies. Faculty also commonly work with research subjects who may provide various kinds of sensitive information. Academic inquiry and endeavors are also promoted when development of manuscripts, codes, and research analyses may be done without disclosure prior to patenting or copyrighting, public dissemination, or publication.
In each of the above settings, a promise of confidentiality encourages faculty, students, and research subjects to be frank participants in processes integral to the academic enterprise. Confidential review processes undergird academic integrity; the academic freedom offered to scholars in turn hinges on accountability in the form of confidential peer review.
In addition to the aforementioned activities, faculty, research staff, and students engage in the production of intellectual property, including instructional materials such as lecture notes, research materials including data, methodologies, and draft works in progress. In many cases faculty operate in competitive settings where there is an advantage to be gained from being the first to report a finding, or the first to develop innovative instructional materials.
The legislature intends to narrowly amend the public records act to recognize the state's interest in fostering academic settings where faculty, staff, and students may innovate without the concern of having unpublished materials released, and where promises of confidentiality offered by journal editors, scholarly presses, funding agencies, investigators working with research subjects, and institutions of higher education themselves are fully recognized and respected in law.
The following are exempt from public inspection and copying under this chapter:
The identity of a human subject if the informed consent protocol for the research study had guaranteed confidentiality of records identifying that subject;
The following records only as they relate to peer reviews of scholarly manuscripts and research proposals: Materials provided to reviewers for the purpose of such peer reviews, evaluations by peer reviewers, and correspondence between the reviewer and the review requester to the extent such correspondence would reveal the reviewer's identity; and
Data, computer code, or draft manuscripts created in the conduct of research studies until such data, code, or draft manuscripts have been publicly disseminated, published, copyrighted, or patented.
As used in this section:
"Human subject" has the meaning defined in 45 C.F.R. Sec. 46.102, as it existed February 1, 2025.
"Research" has the meaning defined in 45 C.F.R. Sec. 46.102, as it existed February 1, 2025.