{"id":10315,"date":"2025-10-21T17:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T17:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/10315\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T17:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T17:50:07","slug":"penn-state-loses-fight-to-keep-internal-trustee-documents-hidden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/10315\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State loses fight to keep internal trustee documents hidden"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA<\/a>, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania. Sign up for Talk of the Town, a daily newsletter of local stories that dig deep, events, and more from north-central PA, at spotlightpa.org\/newsletters\/talkofthetown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Commonwealth Court judge ordered Penn State University to release internal board of trustees documents, likely ending a yearslong open records dispute between the university, several state departments and Spotlight PA.<\/p>\n

Penn State has 30 days to turn over documents related to a private trustees retreat and a nonpublic board committee meeting, which both occurred in 2022. The court\u2019s Monday ruling<\/a> upheld a 2023 decision by the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records.<\/p>\n

Spotlight PA was represented pro bono by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision is a major victory for government transparency and accountability,\u201d Devin Brader-Araje, a Cornell Law School student who argued the case, said in a statement. \u201cThe Court made clear that government officials cannot use technology to hide public information from the public. The ruling reaffirms that Pennsylvania\u2019s Right-to-Know Law will continue to serve its intended purpose of ensuring open access to government records.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Neither Penn State\u2019s Office of Strategic Communications nor board leadership responded to a request for comment for this story or a question about whether the university planned to appeal the latest decision.<\/p>\n

The case stemmed from a records request Spotlight PA filed in May 2023 with Pennsylvania\u2019s Agriculture and Education departments for records the agencies\u2019 secretaries used while serving on the university\u2019s governing board. While Penn State is largely exempt from the state\u2019s open records law due to a legal carveout, a 2013 court ruling<\/a> said records that the agencies\u2019 secretaries used as trustees could be accessed.<\/p>\n

The Office of Open Records ruled that some of the records the newsroom requested should be made public. Penn State and the Department of Education appealed the decision to Commonwealth Court.<\/p>\n

Penn State, in legal filings and in court last month, argued the state agencies did not possess or control the records Spotlight PA sought because Penn State housed the files on a cloud-based, file-sharing service. The online system allows the university to control who can access which files and whether the records can be downloaded.<\/p>\n

The court, in its decision, said Penn State\u2019s argument was \u201cwithout merit.\u201d Siding with the university, the court said, would contradict the intent of the state\u2019s open records law for transparency and would \u201cperversely incentivize Commonwealth agencies, local agencies, and affected third parties like Penn State to utilize remote servers and\/or cloud-based services, in order to ensure that they would no longer need to disclose what would otherwise constitute public records.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the ruling, Penn State must also unredact portions of a 2022 document given to trustees about the university\u2019s \u201cfiscal challenges\u201d and altering the budget to better align with Penn State\u2019s \u201cpriorities and values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2022, in response to a budget deficit, the university has made steep cuts<\/a>, paid some employees to leave<\/a> and announced the closure of seven campuses<\/a> across the state.<\/p>\n

In legal filings, Penn State said making the redacted information public would \u201ccreate distrust and confusion\u201d or \u201cdamage employee morale and retention.\u201d The court ruled that \u201csuch vague jargon and conclusory statements fall woefully short\u201d of proving that Penn State would be harmed by the information\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegal gray areas and clever workarounds will not stop our team in pursuit of the people\u2019s right to know, and we\u2019re pleased with the outcome in this case,\u201d Christopher Baxter, CEO and president of Spotlight PA, said in a statement. \u201cSpotlight PA is proud to be fighting for government transparency and openness at all levels, on behalf of all taxpayers in Pennsylvania, regardless of their politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the Penn State board settled a separate lawsuit<\/a> that Spotlight PA brought against it over alleged violations of Pennsylvania\u2019s Sunshine Act, the state law mandating transparency from governing bodies.<\/p>\n

As part of the settlement, the board agreed to release more information<\/a> about its private meetings, including who is leading the gatherings and the topic discussed. The board also participated in a legal training<\/a> last month on the open meetings law and what governing bodies must do to comply with it. The terms of the settlement will last for five years. Read the full agreement here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SUPPORT THIS JOURNALISM and help us reinvigorate local news in north-central Pennsylvania at spotlightpa.org\/donate<\/a>. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you<\/a> who are committed to accountability and public-service journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[139,28,30,29,1478,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-10315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-pennsylvania","10":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","11":"tag-pennsylvania-news","12":"tag-spotlight-pa","13":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}