Week 1: The recurring gap between data governance and accountability

This week establishes the analytical framework for the course. Students examine how data governance failures occur across different administrations, technological eras, and legal contexts and identify the structural conditions that make those failures recurrent rather than exceptional. Cases are drawn from 1919 through the present day and span administrations of both parties.

Learning Objectives

Define data governance, privacy and ethics as distinct but interacting disciplines and identify where they diverge
Distinguish between legal compliance and ethical accountability as analytical categories
Identify the four structural conditions that recur across data governance failures regardless of political context
- absence of oversight
- purpose creep
- aggregation
- enforcement gaps
Apply a consistent analytical framework to cases across administrations and eras without reliance on political or moral prior conclusions
Articulate the course's central question: Why do governance frameworks fail to prevent the failurse they were designed to prevent

Session Structure

Hour 1 - Defining the three disciplines and their relationship

Hour 2 - The pattern: a structured case walk

Hour 3 - Small group analysis

Hour 4 - The Church Committee and the question that opens the course

Required Materials

Here are required reading materials

Assignment

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