The Kernel had requested investigative documents under the Kentucky Open Records Act in a sexual harassment case against a United Kingdom professor who resigned without admitting guilt.
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Kentucky’s attorney general turned up the pressure Wednesday on the state’s flagship university to release documents regarding a sexual harassment investigation of a professor. He says UK’s dispute is with Beshear’s office, not the campus newspaper.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Beshear said the school has taken an “irresponsible position” in withholding the records and refusing to allow the attorney general to review the documents. “But what is at stake is too important, and the ramifications are simply too great”.
Such opinions of the attorney general carry the force of law in Kentucky but the law allows for appeal through the courts while prohibiting the appellant from directly suing the AG. Beshear was referring not just to United Kingdom in this and another case, but the University of Louisville’s recent refusal to allow his office to inspect records it had withheld from an open records request relating to former-President James Ramsey’s decision to impose a post-season ban on its men’s basketball team.
Earlier this year, the Kentucky Kernel appealed a decision to the AG’s office after the University of Kentucky’s denial of the newspaper’s request “to obtain copies of all records detailing the investigation by the University of Kentucky or the Office of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity of a tenured professor and any allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault or any other misconduct”.
The Lexington Herald Leader reports that three on the panel spoke out about the university’s lawsuit against the Kentucky Kernel, the school’s independent newspaper. The university has consistently said its dispute is with Beshear, not the campus newspaper.
Following the meeting we reached United Kingdom spokesman Jay Blanton.
Beshear’s office also ruled last week that United Kingdom violated the same open records law by refusing to submit audits and other documents sought by The Lexington Herald-Leader related to a Hazard cardiology practice the United Kingdom once owned.
“We believe strongly that to allow anyone – the press, a member of our university community, an employer or any private citizen – to access confidential records will have a chilling impact on the willingness of survivors to come forward”. The Kernel set up a GoFundMe page to raise $15,000 to pay for its legal defense.
The case started this summer when the Kernel published a story about a professor who resigned from United Kingdom in February amid a sexual-harassment investigation.
Beshear said Wednesday his suit, filed in Fayette County Circuit Court, seeks civil fines and restitution against American Home Design Inc., which does business as Sunrooms and More LLC. “Without the documents we could never disprove them”, Beshear said.
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Beshear said United Kingdom is saying, “Trust us”. The Democrat also is challenging Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s orders to replace members of some state boards and commissions.
