Tennessee Code Title 4. State Government § 4-12-113

(a) Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), notwithstanding any law to the contrary, an application for a position of museum executive director, materials submitted with an application, letters of recommendation or references concerning an applicant, and any other records or information relating to or arising out of the process of searching for and selecting an individual for the position of museum executive director shall be treated as confidential and shall not be open for public inspection, if the records could be used to identify a candidate for the position.

(b) After a search committee has selected candidates as finalists for the position of museum executive director, the committee shall publicly announce the finalists. The announcement must occur no later than fifteen (15) calendar days before the final vote of the Douglas Henry state museum commission to appoint or elect a person to fill the position of museum executive director. Records relating exclusively to the candidates selected as finalists are not confidential and shall be open for public inspection, except for a record otherwise confidential under state or federal law.

(c) This section shall not apply to information relating to a candidate who did not expressly request that the candidate's information be kept confidential.

(d) Meetings or portions of meetings devoted to discussing information deemed confidential pursuant to this section are exempt from title 8, chapter 44, part 1.

(e) For the purposes of this section, “finalists” means those candidates selected by a search committee as the group to be recommended to the commission from which one (1) shall be appointed or elected museum executive director.