Overtime for MSU, ESPN

A dispute between Michigan State University and the ESPN Sports Network over the university’s refusal to release 301 student-athlete names in campus police reports has moved to the state Court of Appeals.

MSU is challenging a ruling by Ingham County Circuit Judge Clinton Canady III that ordered the university to release the names of all listed suspects in the reports. The university had redacted the names of all witnesses, victims and suspects, athlete or not, in its response to ESPN’s initial request for the information last September.

The Circuit Court’s March 2015 decision in part sided with MSU´s redaction of victim and witness names in the reports. Canady considered them “unwilling participants” with a right to privacy, according to appeal briefs. Soon after MSU appealed his decision, Canady stayed his order requiring the release of suspect names.

“There were some things [Judge Canady] agreed with us on, there were some things he agreed with ESPN on. One of the things he agreed with ESPN on was to release the suspects’ names, even if they never were formally charged with a crime,” said the university’s media communications manager, Jason Cody. “We took issue with that.”

The dispute began early last fall when ESPN filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all campus police reports featuring the names of 301 specified student athletes. ESPN requested the information for an “Outside the Lines” investigative report on athletes at 10 universities and whether they received more leniency than others from campus and local police. While MSU was not found to give student-athletes any special treatment, the university’s data is still incomplete, due to the Circuit Court stay pending appeal.

Cody said that a major consideration in MSU’s appeal is that the Circuit Court chose to not review unredacted police reports the university provided. “For proper legal review, it would be important to review the records in question,” he said. “We feel that would give more context and could help whoever’s deciding the case make a more informed decision.”

ESPN declined to comment on the case.

The Freedom of Information Act, which let ESPN request crime report documents, grants organizations and individuals the right to access records and information about government and public entities. The intent of the law is transparency and insight into the workings of public bodies, which includes universities like Michigan State.

According to Cody, the redactions in the reports had nothing to do with student athletes. Rather, he said that withholding such information is simply university policy for MSU police reports, in order to protect individuals’ privacy.

“Our FOIA office redacts for MSU police the same way for everybody. It has no bearing whatsoever whether the people involved are students, student athletes, chemistry majors, employees,” Cody said. “The privacy of all those individuals who have interactions with our police department — that’s what’s important to us.”

Privacy exemptions, under FOIA law, allow a public body to withhold information that constitutes a clear and unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Cody said the university’s use of such exemptions is fair, and in line with FOIA law.

Jane Briggs- Bunting, president of the Michigan Coalition for Open Government, disagrees.

“We think they’re far in excess of what FOIA law allows,” she said. “They’ll argue personal privacy, they’ll argue a lot of different things. But the bottom line is, every individual should be accountable, and universities are not exempt from the law, and they’re not above the law.”

Briggs-Bunting said that MSU — and many other public bodies — abuse the FOIA law, but they often get away with it because of the barriers that average citizens have to face to challenge these abuses.

“What most public bodies are banking on is if they refuse to give the information, if they redact it, is citizens or organizations will simply let them get away with it,” she said. “Organizations like ESPN can take them on, and good for them.”

In the course of their investigative report, ESPN filed a similar FOIA request with the East Lansing Police Department. The request was fulfilled with near–complete reports — names included, said the ELPD’s FOIA coordinator, Heidi Williams.

“The request was processed as any other FOIA request,” Williams said. “Names of athletes involved in any incidents were considered public record.”

While it is ELPD policy to redact information like social security numbers and victim addresses and phone numbers, Williams said names are only redacted in certain cases, such as sexual assaults. She said redactions are largely decided on a case-tocase basis.

“Transparency for police departments is very important,” she said. “However, there is a balancing test for law enforcement agencies to consider when releasing information that could be private, or sensitive in nature.”

Williams said that while the ELPD tries to be as transparent as possible, the department also has to consider personal privacy, and what’s best for law enforcement.

Briggs-Bunting, formerly a professor and director of MSU’s School of Journal ism, said that campus police should be held to the same transparency standards as other law enforcement agencies, like the ELPD.

“You shouldn’t see a difference at all, that’s the bottom line,” she said. “If the offcampus police are going to release the records, and they don’t find an exemption, I’m not sure why the on-campus police somehow invent an exemption.”

MSU is no stranger to legal battles over FOIA, either. In 2006, the independent student newspaper, The State News, filed a lawsuit against MSU over a denied request for records on a recent, violent, crime committed in a university dormitory. The dispute ended in 2008 at the Michigan Supreme Court, where MSU was victorious.

Briggs-Bunting said that MSU — and all universities — should put more value in transparency.

“Universities should be the most transparent and open institutions in the United States, because that’s the fundamental basis of what a university is — free flow of discussion, and the ability to disagree,” she said.

Both ESPN and MSU filed requests last month for oral arguments in the pending Court of Appeals case.