OSU denies access when others don’t
Officials from the state’s flagship public university routinely talk about a commitment to transparency, yet Ohio State University has a track record of interpreting the state public-records laws in ways that shield some vital information from public scrutiny.
Records explaining how the university spends or invests public money, protects students from criminals on campus, prescribes painkillers to athletes and evaluates the job performance of its president are a few examples of documents that OSU has deemed private, a Dispatch analysis has found.
When a former employee fired shots inside the Wexner Center for the Arts before taking his own life in November 2015, OSU officials shielded many records about the incident from the public.
The deadly episode that unfolded as students returned from Thanksgiving break was shrouded in so much secrecy that even the center’s major donor, Leslie H. Wexner, complained about the lack of communication.
Wexner’s scolding in a handwritten memo, obtained last year by The Dispatch after a publicrecords request, helped university officials craft a better response to the next tragedy: the November 2016 attack on a group of students and faculty by a knife-wielding student who was then shot and killed by a campus police officer. The university quickly provided public safety reports and even the attacker’s academic record.
As evidence mounted in 2010 that then-football coach Jim Tressel violated NCAA rules, Ohio State quickly made public his cellphone records that proved he had lied to his bosses and the governing body of college athletics. But when a Pittsburgh newspaper asked to see the calls to and from football coach Urban Meyer’s cellphone three years later, OSU said Meyer’s calls to recruits were protected as a trade secret. Tressel, too, had used his phone to call star high-school players.
Every other public university in Ohio has made public the names of students who have been disciplined by their schools for committing acts of violence against other students and their punishments by the school. But not at Ohio State, which even has shielded information from students who were victims.
The Ohio Public Records Law was created so the public can assess how taxpayer-funded government agencies function. The law allows access to documents, emails, reports, videos, databases and photographs. The law is open to some interpretation because it doesn’t list every conceivable record, but Ohio Supreme Court rulings and opinions of the Ohio attorney general’s office generally have leaned toward advising agencies to err on the side of making records public.
Ohio State says that it takes each request as it comes, and evaluates each based on its own merit. OSU officials acknowledge that they don’t necessarily interpret laws the same as other public universities.
“We’re committed to communicating in an open and transparent way,” said university spokesman Chris Davey. “The challenge is ... that we never want to compromise the privacy of our patients, students or members of the community.”
To mark the kickoff of national Sunshine Week, an annual event to promote the importance of an open and transparent government, The Dispatch analyzed five years of public-records requests made to Ohio State. It found that many people and organizations struggle to obtain what they seek.
Among them: professors seeking answers about why they were denied tenure; lawyers representing a fired band director; and an OSU student who wanted a copy of a gender-discrimination investigation. News organizations were told by the university that it had no records detailing the number of Ohio State athletes who suffered concussions; arrests made during football games; documents about animal research.
OSU is one of the state’s largest public employers, with more than 27,000 employees. It serves hundreds of thousands of students, alumni and patients. It hosts more than a million visitors and sports fans each year. It operates a $6.2 billion budget, with at least $385 million coming from taxpayers.
Lawyer David Marburger, who co-wrote the book “Access With Attitude” about the failures of Ohio’s public-records law, said that it’s extremely difficult to obtain records from universities, and especially from Ohio State.
“Ohio State is an impenetrable barrier,” Marburger said. “OSU is very difficult to get meaningful accountability from, and that’s been the case since 1983 when I started practicing law. It’s always been this way at Ohio State. Always, always, always.”
Davey, responding to Marburger’s assessment, said: “That’s patently false.”
Playing defense
Experts on Ohio publicrecords law said the deck is stacked against people requesting access to records. Most government agencies have in-house lawyers, a law director or prosecutor who can review requests and provide legal arguments for approving or denying them.
In 2015, Ohio State had more than 30 lawyers and paralegals working in its legal-affairs department, up from 19 five years earlier. These lawyers specialize in public records, compliance, labor law and sex discrimination, to name a few.
“It’s not a level playing field. The private citizen is hard pressed to fight this, to pay for lawyers,” said Jack Greiner, a Cincinnati lawyer who sued Ohio State for records involving NCAA violations on behalf of ESPN.
The sports-entertainment giant has deep pockets to pay for court battles. Most citizens do not.
If someone decides to sue for a denied record, OSU lawyers are paid the same whether it’s handed over or not. But individuals are hamstrung, because hiring a lawyer to fight for records can cost thousands of dollars.
Those who are denied access also can pay $25 to the Ohio Court of Claims for mediation. But decisions in that court do not carry lasting legal weight, as they do when a case is heard by a Common Pleas court or the Ohio Supreme Court.
“There’s a certain attitude at Ohio State that you can’t beat us, so forget it,” Marburger said. “They have great relationships with the judiciary, the legislature and the executive branch. They have lots of prestige, and they are a giant institution that is wellliked by the public. Based on all of that, they know they’re hard to beat.”
Secret discipline
Since December, Ohio State student Patrick Owens has worried that he might run into the man who jumped him from behind and left him with a bruised rib cage, bloody scratches and a bruised arm.
His attacker was John E. Veracco, a fellow OSU student.
Owens, 20, was at work in a restaurant when he was attacked Dec. 1. He called OSU police, who charged Veracco with assault and aggravated trespassing.
Owens later tried to learn what the school did to punish Veracco for assaulting a fellow student, which is a violation of the university’s code of conduct. OSU officials told Owens that Veracco was instructed to have no contact with him, but nothing more.
OSU’s response left Owens unsettled. Would he bump into Veracco, who was a friend of a friend, in a classroom or the student union?
“They told me it wouldn’t be appropriate to violate his privacy,” Owens said, explaining why OSU gave him no other information other than that Veracco was ordered to have no contact with him.
Veracco told The Dispatch that Owens shouldn’t be entitled to such information. “What happens to me is private and should be kept private,” he said. “It’s none of his business.”
OSU investigated Owens’ complaint that he did not receive adequate information from the university after The Dispatch raised questions about it on Thursday. Davey said the university has a policy that requires Ohio State to inform crime victims of disciplinary outcomes, but said that it did not fully inform Owens of the actions taken against his attacker.
“We are troubled that, in the instance referred to by The Columbus Dispatch, this policy was not followed,” Davey said. He said the attacker was criminally charged, found in violation of the code of conduct, issued a no-contact sanction, suspended for a semester and banned from campus. Owens was told of the no-contact order, but not all of the discipline.
“We have reached out to apologize that not all information was shared when requested and to offer any support that we can going forward,” Davey said.
According to court records, Veracco was sentenced to 90 days in jail for the assault. A judge suspended all but two of those days and placed him on probation. Veracco told The Dispatch that he plans to return to campus after his suspension.