University of Kentucky sues student paper for record request

The University of Kentucky opened a lawsuit against its student paper in August over a public record request from the paper.

The Kentucky Kernel requested information regarding UK’s investigation of James Harwood, an associate professor accused by five students of sexual assault and harassment.

Marjorie Kirk, editor-in-chief of the Kentucky Kernel, said the paper requested the documents from UK, but the university’s response did not include Harwood’s charges.

The paper then sent in a more exact request for the documents. UK denied the request, and the Kernel appealed to the Kentucky attorney general to ask for the documents in redacted form.

The attorney general’s office ruled that it could not decide the case without viewing the documents in question. To object to that decision, UK sued the paper.

This month, the attorney general decided to intervene in the lawsuit.

“What our portion of the lawsuit, the complaint, is about, is the fact that we have the statutory ability to review records to make decisions in open records cases and the university refused to give us the records,” said La Tasha Buckner, the executive director of the Office of Civil and Environmental Law in the attorney general’s office.

Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said a lawsuit like this is extremely rare.

“It’s really intimidating for a student publication to be facing the potential of financial ruin by having to defend against a lawsuit from a university with unlimited financial resources,” he said.

“It’s almost unprecedented for a university to take such an aggressive step, especially where the state attorney general has already given an authoritative interpretation.”

Kirk said the documents were eventually given to the Kentucky Kernel by an anonymous source related to the case, but UK is still suing the paper to repeal the attorney general’s decision.

She said she believes the paper is in the right.

“I think these documents, without them, people would have no idea what Harwood did, they would just have no way of proving it,” she said.

UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said releasing the documents would violate victims’ privacy.

“The issue really at hand is a disagreement over what can remain private, and we believe that only the victim has the right and the perspective to tell their story,” he said. “We don’t think that lies with the media, or with another student or with an employee — or worse, a stalker.”

LoMonte said most public records cases err on the side of disclosure.

“The idea that this particular investigation is none of the public’s business is awfully hard to say with a straight face in the year 2016,” he said. “So, I think they’ve picked a uniquely poor case on which to prove their point and that makes you wonder if there is some other agenda here.”

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