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GREENSBORO — When it comes to the Justice Department investigation into Greensboro’s police force, legal experts and City Council members suggest the same thing.

The city is in a tough spot. But it might be in its best interest to do whatever it can to appease investigators.

Justice Department investigators, who are looking at discrimination complaints from about 40 black police officers, said city attorneys are not cooperating with their investigation based on an incorrect interpretation of the state’s employee personnel privacy law.

But legal experts said that city attorneys are right to be worried about violating the privacy law and that the city has no requirement to voluntarily comply with Justice Department requests.

Still, council members are concerned about the strongly worded missives from the Justice Department investigators that the city received last week.

“My thought is, we give the Justice Department every piece of paper, every file they ask for. If there is ever an issue about that, our defense is, 'It was the Justice Department that asked for it,' ” Councilman Mike Barber said. “I don’t think you ever say no to the Department of Justice. It can’t lead to anything good.”

Three years ago, the police officers filed complaints against the city with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The commission referred the complaints to the Justice Department civil rights division, which, in some cases, represents complainants’ discrimination cases in court.

The city is working to comply with the requests for volumes of documents by the Justice Department investigators. But city attorneys have said they cannot allow employees or anyone else to discuss certain personnel information with the investigators for fear they will violate the state personnel laws.

Justice Department officials said that interpretation of the law is unreasonable.

But experts in employment law said the city attorneys are right to be concerned.

“Those laws tend to be pretty protective,” said Eric Fink, an employment law associate professor at Elon University. “They are there for a reason. They are there to protect people’s privacy.”

The state’s employee privacy law prevents the city or anyone else from revealing all but the most basic information, such as current job title and salary, that might be contained in a city employee’s personnel file.

“It’s ticklish because, you see, the law actually makes the individual who revealed the information potentially liable to the person whose file is revealed,” said John Meuser, a North Carolina labor attorney who formerly worked for the EEOC.

Both the person who reveals inappropriate information about an employee and the person who received the information could be charged with a misdemeanor. And the city has, in the past, been warned by attorneys representing officers that they must comply with the personnel law.

City officials have often cited the personnel law as a reason they cannot give out information requested by reporters, bloggers and the public.

But they have also overridden the personnel law in certain circumstances.

The law allows city managers and elected leaders to release information about an employee’s performance to “maintain public confidence in the administration.”

And the City Council has done so on this issue, voting to release dozens of internal memos, tape recordings and other information related to the officers’ claims.

And Barber, an attorney, contends that the law also includes an exemption that would allow other government agencies to access the records in such a case.

Council members are worried the Justice Department could punish Greensboro for not cooperating with the investigation.

“I don’t know personnel law, but we seem to be really, really strict on personnel laws,” Councilwoman Sandra Anderson Groat said. “I hate it because it’s going to show us just being off-putting, like we have something to hide.”

Despite those concerns, legal experts said the city doesn’t have to voluntarily comply with investigators’ requests.

“The Justice Department doesn’t have any independent enforcement authority here,” Meuser said.

But if city officials are smart, he said, they will comply.

That’s the exact sentiment of some council members.

“From my standpoint, when you got the Department of Justice in there, you do exactly what they want,” Councilman Robbie Perkins said.

“Their findings need to be based on full disclosure and full information, and not based on an interpretation.”

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com