The Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment gathered journalists and lawyers for discussions at Penn State Wednesday for the Sunshine Week event "Sunlight in Happy Valley: Confronting Penn State's Transparency Gap."
A panel of journalists from Spotlight PA, the Centre Daily Times, and the News Lab at Penn State talked about difficulties they’ve faced in covering the university and Penn State’s transparency gap.
Penn State’s status as a state-related university makes it exempt from disclosing certain information that state universities have to disclose under Pennsylvania’s Right To Know Law, such as overtime records from university police.
After the journalists, there was a panel of attorneys, including Heather Murray, the Associate Director of the Cornell First Amendment Clinic. She told the audience questions of transparency have plagued Penn State over the years, especially in the openness of Board of Trustees meetings.
“There’s no one to call. If you would like to call the state office of open records, they’ll direct you to their page, but they can’t do anything. They’re not empowered to take action. So, citizens or news organizations like Spotlight PA in its lawsuit against Penn State are forced to take action," Murray said.
In response to the Spotlight PA lawsuit, the Commonwealth Court ordered Penn State to release internal Board of Trustees documents in October. Penn State appealed that ruling.
Penn State junior communications student Jake Kaplan says it’s important for Penn State to supply its community with proper information.
“I think it’s wrong how at Penn State they don’t have access to those records or things like that," Kaplan said, "where they said at other universities you do have access to that."