University of Georgia police chief Chuck Horton says he and other university officials are working hard to honor open records laws. ASSOCIATED PRESS

College records made accessible

At most Georgia universities, officials handed over crime logs as law requires

Web posted December 17, 1999

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By Lee Shearer
Athens Daily News/Banner Herald

When surveyors fanned out across Georgia to ask for public records in September, the state's public college system did pretty well.

At 14 of 16 schools, officials turned over daily public crime logs as all public colleges and universities are required to do under the Georgia Open Records Act. A new federal law that goes into effect in July will require public crime logs be maintained by all colleges and universities, including private institutions not now covered by state law.

But the records didn't always come easily. At Fort Valley State University, for example, a newspaper reporter was passed all the way to a vice president before the OK came.

Officials at the University of Georgia, like those at other state schools, say they are working hard to honor the state's strengthened open records and meetings laws.

``We have been trying,'' said university Police Chief Chuck Horton.

``As far as I'm concerned, our direction is to open it (any record) unless it meets one of the exceptions,'' said Bob Taylor, the University of Georgia's open records compliance officer.

Mr. Taylor has received nearly 80 open records requests since July 1. Most came from newspaper reporters, some from employees or students, and some from companies seeking lists of student names and addresses, he said.

Almost always, the university turns over the records, Mr. Taylor said.

The main exceptions Mr. Taylor deals with are student Social Security numbers, medical and veterinary records, records in pending real-estate transactions and pending patent applications, Mr. Taylor said.

University records, particularly those dealing with information about campus crime, have not always been so accessible -- mainly because of the 1974 Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act, also known as the Buckley Amendment, which protects the privacy of student records.

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A series of lawsuits and amendments, starting in the 1980s, has succeeded in removing Buckley Amendment protections from crime incident reports and some disciplinary records involving criminal behavior, thus giving the public more information about campus crime.

Two of the most important lawsuits on this issue involved the University of Georgia and the campus newspaper, The Red and Black. The first case started in 1990, when the newspaper requested records of disciplinary proceedings involving a fraternity accused of hazing. After winning the case, the newspaper sued in 1993 for access to records involving a student accused of setting fire to posters on a dormitory room door.

Those requests started a legal battle that went to the Georgia Supreme Court twice before the newspaper won. In the process, the dispute broadened into a still-unresolved national debate over public access to campus crime information.

``To me, it sounded like a no-brainer,'' said former Associated Press staffer Carolyn Carlson, who was at the time a guest editor at The Red and Black.

She called a prominent lawyer she knew in Atlanta. Soon she and the student journalists were involved in a court case that went on for almost a decade.

University officials refused to open the hearings or release the records to the student newspaper because of the Buckley Amendment. But such disciplinary hearings can deal with very serious crimes -- drug possession and on some campuses, even sexual assault -- explained Ms. Carlson, now a graduate student and adjunct professor at Georgia State University.

Because of The Red and Black lawsuit, Georgia is the only state where all disciplinary hearings and records at public colleges are open to the public.

The public in the other 49 states is still in the dark about what criminal acts students may have been charged with, who those students are and what punishment school administrators may have meted out, Ms. Carlson said.

``Many crimes on campus are never turned over to the regular court system,'' she said.

After the newspaper's lawsuits, a lobbying coalition of journalism organizations and victim-rights groups formed to force colleges to report publicly details of all crimes on campus.

``That case set a national precedent of opening student judiciary meetings and records,'' said Kent Middleton, head of the University of Georgia's journalism school and an expert on communications law.