A judge has sided with the student newspaper at Western Kentucky University in a seven-year open records dispute.
In an Aug. 16 ruling, Warren Circuit Judge Chris Cohron said WKU must turn over “minimally redacted” records related to sexual misconduct investigations involving employees.
The records were originally requested in 2017 by student reporters at the College Heights Herald who were investigating how public universities in Kentucky handle allegations of sexual misconduct. Six of the eight schools provided records of the Title IX investigations, but WKU and Kentucky State University declined.
The campus newspaper appealed to the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, which said the universities had to release the records in redacted form under the state's Open Records Act.
WKU sued the College Heights to appeal the AG's ruling. In 2021, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled the records were public and subject to the Opens Records Act in a separate, but similar case from the University of Kentucky. WKU then provided some files, but they were heavily redacted.
“Being able to access complete information is essential for a public agency to be transparent to public and for the public to have confidence the agency is doing its job," Student Publications Director Chuck Clark told WKU Public Radio.
For past two years, arguments in court have centered around the amount of material WKU could redact or not release from cases the school considered unsubstantiated.
Judge Cohron's ruling said redactions had to be limited to information that would identify victims and any personal information about the accused not relevant to the investigation. The ruling said that names and titles of the accused, even in unsubstantiated cases, should be released.
"If unsubstantiated claims warranted greater protection in some cases, perverse incentives exist for public agencies to unsubstantiate claims to avoid public scrutiny," according to the ruling.
"Since the litigation began, the university’s intention has been to protect the privacy interest of employees in compliance with the law who were found to have not violated university policy," the university said in a statement. "We are pleased this matter has been resolved and appreciate the clarity the court has provided."
According to Clark, WKU intends to release the minimally redacted records in the next two weeks.
