果冻传媒app官方

Table of Contents

Student press gets big win as Kentucky Supreme Court sides with student newspaper

University of Kentucky Library

The court held UK's use of a boilerplate denial for each of the withheld records was "wholly unacceptable." (Alexey Stiop / Shutterstock.com)

The Supreme Court of Kentucky that the University of Kentucky acted improperly when it prevented student newspaper The Kentucky Kernel from accessing records about a Title IX investigation that implicated a professor. The March 25 ruling marks a huge victory in a tale that, at this point, feels about as old as time (but actually dates back merely 6 years).

It all started in 2015, when two UK students alleged that a professor had sexually assaulted and harassed them. The university completed an investigation and found evidence supported these allegations. The professor before a full hearing could be held.

The Kernel related to the Title IX investigation and the professor鈥檚 resignation. UK . The records were too 鈥減ersonal鈥 and 鈥減rivileged,鈥 the university said.

But the Kernel didn鈥檛 let the university have the last word.

The records request went through a complicated legal back-and-forth involving the Kentucky attorney general, the interplay between FERPA 鈥 the federal statute that protects student privacy rights 鈥 and public records laws, and, ultimately, the courts. I鈥檒l spare you the hairy details this time around, but our 2018 write-up of the case does a good job of summarizing them. What you need to know is this: The case ended up at the Kentucky Supreme Court, which was tasked with determining whether UK had complied with Kentucky鈥檚 public records law when it determined that the entire investigatory file 鈥 including things like the professor鈥檚 CV and policy documents 鈥 was exempt from disclosure.

The court鈥檚 short answer? No.

As the court put it, 鈥淭he University鈥檚 initial, single-paragraph assertion of a blanket exemption to disclosure of the entire Harwood Investigative File was wholly insufficient.鈥

You see, UK had initially to the Kernel鈥檚 request with a flat denial, claiming the records were exempt. But Kentucky鈥檚 public records law requires more: Public bodies must, as the court explained, 鈥減rove that requested documents fit within an exception.鈥 And the university鈥檚 attempt to shoo the student journalists with a 鈥渂oilerplate paragraph 鈥 this but if not this then that 鈥 used for every withheld document was wholly unacceptable.鈥

Aside from finding that UK acted out of step with the public records law, the court also addressed the university鈥檚 eventual argument that it could not disclose the records without violating FERPA. 

The Kernel didn鈥檛 let the university have the last word.

鈥淭he FERPA 鈥榚ducation record鈥 exclusion,鈥 the court explained, 鈥渨as clearly not intended as an 鈥榠nvisibility cloak鈥 that can be used to shield any document that involves or is associated in some way with a student, the approach taken by the University in this case.鈥

At 果冻传媒app官方, we all too often see universities try to use FERPA this way. For example, in a similar case at the University of North Carolina, UNC invoked FERPA to from student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel. After the North Carolina Supreme Court ordered UNC to release the records last May, the university even to take up the case. That petition was . But what both the UNC and UK cases teach us is that universities aren鈥檛 Harry Potter, and FERPA is not a cloak that makes inconvenient records disappear.

Kentucky鈥檚 supreme court remanded the UK case back to the trial court, which must now determine which parts of the requested records must be turned over to the Kernel. 

Like the court, 鈥淸w]e trust that the University will [comply with its obligations] on remand and the trial court can proceed to a proper resolution of this unnecessarily protracted open records action.鈥 And we also trust that this will serve as a lesson to all public universities: Student journalists, as liaisons for the public, have a right to access and publish public records.

Recent Articles

FIRE鈥檚 award-winning Newsdesk covers the free speech news you need to stay informed.

Share