A state ruling determined that the University of Kentucky violated Kentucky’s Open Records Act (ORA), siding with the Kentucky Kernel in an appeal.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman sent the appeal decision via email on Sept. 4, supporting the Kernel’s assertion that UK failed to explain a delayed records response.
The Kernel filed an open records request for the complete personnel files of two recently removed deans and any investigations concerning them on June 19.
Amy Spagnuolo, director of open records at UK, responded on June 23 via email, stating the records were in “active use, in storage or not otherwise available pursuant to KRS 61.872(5) (the ORA),” therefore the office would need 30 days to respond.
The ORA requires that a public agency grant or deny a request within five business days, according to Coleman.
Spagnuolo said the office would need longer than the statutory five business days to “gather all potentially responsive documents,” “determine if the responsive documents are exempt” and “redact exempt materials.”
On June 26, the Kernel submitted an appeal to Coleman, arguing that UK violated the timeline required under the ORA.
“The University has essentially extended its five-day response time to 30 days, with no meaningful explanation,” the appeal said. “The things that it says it must do are basic requirements of the Act and must be done within the five-day timeframe.”
Within 10 minutes of being notified about the appeal on June 26, the Open Records Office once again requested an extension to the five-day response requirement, which was granted in part by the Attorney General’s Office.
UK’s Open Records Office provided the records from the June 19 request on July 3 and responded to the appeal on July 11.
UK’s response claimed that due to the privileged nature of personnel records, they were within their rights to take extended time to redact portions of them.
The Kentucky attorney general decided on Sept. 4 that their reasoning for the delay was not specific enough and that UK was in violation of the ORA.
“Simply put, a response that would apply equally to any request for records is not sufficiently detailed to explain the cause for a particular delay for producing particular records,” Coleman wrote in the decision. “But here, that is the only explanation the University offered.”
This is not the first time UK has evaded the ORA. The court has ruled in favor of the Kernel over UK in numerous lawsuits under the ORA, including in 2016 and 2024.
“The AG (attorney general) issued a strong opinion making clear that universities have to follow the law,” Kernel Press attorney Michael Abate said. “And they can’t cite their own failure to put enough resources into transparency as a reason to delay and deny requests.”
