The student newspaper at the University of Kentucky is suing the institution for access to records.
The Kentucky Kernel filed suit against UK at the end of last month requesting access to records of all non-student guests who signed into a campus dorm on Sept. 20 following multiple reports of sexual assault on campus during the fall semester. UK denied the records, arguing they are protected by personal privacy exemptions.
Under the Kentucky Open Records Act, records can be requested from public agencies. Denials can be appealed to the Office of the Attorney General or a circuit court. The Kernel did the latter, filing in Fayette County Circuit Court. The lawsuit is assigned to Judge Thomas L. Travis.
The requested records relate to a September report in which a UK student said she was sexually assaulted off campus and then later in her dorm room at Chellgren Hall by a Lexington man, Chase McGuire, 22. He is charged with five counts of first-degree rape, four counts of 3rd degree sodomy, one count of 3rd degree sexual abuse, one count of first-degree strangulation and one count of first-degree attempted strangulation, according to court records.
Kernel Editor-in-Chief Abbey Cutrer requested records from UK about non-student guests who entered the dorm on the day of the incident as well as any records that showed McGuire signing into a UK dorm during the current academic year. In an interview with the Kentucky Lantern, she said it was a way to discover if the university is following its protocols for residence hall security.
However, UK denied the records request in October, which the Kernel reported. According to a response letter from Eric Monday, UK’s records custodian, “any list of all non-UK student guests is considered an invasion of personal privacy” and exempt from disclosure. Monday also said records regarding McGuire specifically were involved in an investigation not yet concluded and were therefore considered preliminary.
Cutrer attempted to revise her request and obtain the records by requesting a list of guests with all names redacted except for McGuire. However, UK continued its denial, prompting the newspaper to sue.
“UK is willfully violating the Open Records Act by refusing to produce vital public records about whether UK is enforcing its policies that are intended to protect its students from assaults like the one committed this September,” says the Kernel’s complaint.
As of Friday, the university had not filed a response to the Kernel’s lawsuit in court. Whitney Siddiqi, a UK spokesperson, said in an email to the Lantern, the university is “confident we followed the law and look forward to making our case.”
“As a state agency, the university follows the Kentucky Open Records Act in releasing public records,” Siddiqi said. “This includes exemptions for some records. Names of individuals visiting residence halls are protected by the personal privacy exemption. For students, those records are also protected as education records. Our Open Records Office works diligently to provide records to the public while also protecting the privacy afforded to individuals under federal and state law.”
This is not the first skirmish between the university and the Kernel over open records. In 2021, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspaper which sought records from UK regarding a sexual misconduct case involving a former professor. That lawsuit lasted five years.
This article is republished under a Creative Commons license from Kentucky Lantern, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and Twitter.
McKenna Horsley covers state politics for the Kentucky Lantern. She previously worked for newspapers in Huntington, West Virginia, and Frankfort, Kentucky. She is from northeastern Kentucky.
