Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law guarantees public access to government information, but Penn State and three other “state-related” universities won an exemption when they lobbied against the law in 2007. Transparency advocates and some lawmakers want that to change.
FULL STORY: Penn State remains largely exempt from PA’s open records law. Should that change?
Here are key takeaways:
• Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln are classified as “state-related institutions” and are not fully covered by the Right to Know Law. Schools in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, like Slippery Rock or Kutztown, are fully subject to it.
• Contracts, bids, financial reports and other documents that are publicly accessible at most Pennsylvania universities are largely inaccessible at Penn State. A 2023 amendment expanded access to some financial records, but advocates say gaps remain wide.
• Nearly every other state university system in the country requires compliance with public records law, according to Amy Kristin Sanders, the John and Ann Curley chair in First Amendment studies at Penn State. Delaware is the only other exception.
• The Centre Daily Times contacted every state legislator representing Centre County. Only Reps. Scott Conklin and Paul Takac responded. Conklin supports making state-related universities subject to the law. Takac stressed transparency but did not directly say he’d support a legislative change.
• Penn State said the current law “strikes an appropriate balance” between keeping proprietary information confidential and the public’s right to understand how tax dollars are spent.
• The exemption has real-world consequences: when Penn State announced campus closures and when a new building closed due to a “structural issue,” the public had no legal right under the RTKL to obtain detailed information about those decisions or their costs.
The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.
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