UNC-Chapel Hill refuses to release sexual assault records after NC Supreme Court order
UNC-Chapel Hill refused Tuesday to release disciplinary records of students found responsible for sexual assaults on campus, despite a North Carolina Supreme Court ruling.
The case stemmed from a 2016 public records request made by four news organizations — The Daily Tar Heel campus newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, the Herald-Sun and Capitol Broadcasting, which owns WRAL.
The court ruling, which was handed down in May, said UNC must give the news organizations access to the names of students found responsible for sexual misconduct, the violations committed and any sanctions imposed by UNC on those students. The records request was for sexual misconduct, including rape and sexual assault, since 2007.
UNC-CH repeatedly denied the request and refused to hand over the records, arguing that they were protected by the federal student privacy law FERPA.
But the court ruled that the university “does not have discretion to withhold the information sought here, which is authorized by, and specified in, the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act as subject to release.”
Commitment to release on June 30
UNC, through its counsel, committed to release 11 records in response to that court order on June 30 “absent court intervention,” according to a June 15 letter from Stephanie Brennan to Hugh Stevens, the attorney representing the media organizations.
Those records had not been released as of Tuesday night.
Stevens emailed Brennan about the records, citing her letter, and she responded saying, “there have been developments since that correspondence which mean that a production will not occur today.”
Brennan cited a previous conversation where UNC “indicated the need to resolve a handful of issues prior to production.”
Those hangups included “the scope of the records to be produced,” she wrote, which “needs to be resolved by the court.”
“Furthermore, the University believes the court must hear the motion filed by impacted students, and any other similar objections,” Brennan wrote. “We agreed to cooperate with you to have that happen as soon as possible and we have taken appropriate steps to inform the court of our availability and the need for a status conference.”
In the email, she said they are willing to appear for a hearing at the court’s convenience.
‘Nothing short of outrageous’
In response, Stevens wrote, “Your response to our inquiry is nothing short of outrageous, but it also is consistent with the University’s inexplicable but dogged efforts to hide the identities of current or former students who, by any definition, were found to have violated the school’s most fundamental social, cultural and legal principles.”
Stevens said he’s seen how UNC desperately wants to “avoid producing records identifying the perpetrators of egregious sexual misconduct, but I never thought that desperation would lead it to renege on a written commitment to comply with an order of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.”
He also noted that the school’s refusal to produce the records is ironic, considering it came on the same day that UNC announced a $1.5 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Education over its failure to properly report statistics about campus crimes, including sexual assaults and offenses.
Stevens argued that the issues regarding additional records, the scope of the records or motions filed on behalf of students found responsible provide no reason to delay the records UNC agreed to release Tuesday. He again demanded that UNC produce the 11 promised records immediately and said his office is reviewing their “clients’ legal options for compelling their release in compliance with the N.C. Supreme Court’s order.”
UNC-CH Vice Chancellor of University Communications Joel Curran said the university cannot comment because there are “issues related to this matter that are still pending before the court.”
Brennan did not return emails or a phone call Tuesday night.
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 10:18 AM with the headline "UNC-Chapel Hill refuses to release sexual assault records after NC Supreme Court order."
