The Bluegrass Pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists made a statement Friday calling UK to drop its lawsuit against the Kentucky Kernel. 

The chapter said via statement that it is “joining a chorus of institutions and individuals” in supporting the Kernel, which includes some School of Journalism and Media faculty. 

“If the controversy were between the newspaper and anyone else, Capilouto would be proud of the courage and determination shown by the reporters and editors, and of the professors who have obviously trained them well,” the statement said. 

Bluegrass Pro Chapter said in the statement that Capilouto has “vilified” the paper in his recent comments at a UK Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 9. Capilouto said the Kernel printed “salacious” details of a sexual assault and harassment investigation against a former associate professor. 

“The school should immediately drop its lawsuit, comply with the attorney general’s order and allow the state’s 40-year-old open records law to work as it has for decades,” Bluegrass Pro Chapter said. 

The statement said Board of Trustee members did not call the matter to a vote in their last meeting for fear of Capilouto resigning. 

David Hawpe, former editor in chief of the Louisville Courier-Journal, said this and voiced the lawsuit against the student paper was unwise and unfair, a previous Kernel article said.

Board Chairman Britt Brockman said he told Hawpe, “In my opinion if a vote regarding this matter came to the floor and if the vote showed a split board that I felt that the president, rather than making himself the focus of the conversation—knowing his ethics, knowing his mannerisms—that he would potentially step aside rather than have a divided board.”

Capilouto also denied that he would have resigned, a previous Kernel article said. 

“Maybe resigning is not such a bad idea,” Bluegrass Pro Chapter said in its statement. “A leader of a public university who has such disdain for transparency, the law and students who demand answers may find pastures greener at a private institution, where secrets are more easily kept, where bad acts are more easily swept under the rug, and where there is more control over student publications.”

Read the full statement from Bluegrass Pro Chapter below: