On university open records laws, Pa. Republicans are right, but for the wrong reasons

If there’s one lesson to learn from this year’s state budget negotiations, it’s simple: Expect the unexpected.

If the school vouchers drama between Senate Republicans, House Democrats, and the governor wasn’t enough, perhaps you’d be surprised to learn a group of House Republicans is leading the charge to hold three massive police departments accountable to greater transparency measures.

Well, that’s likely not their aim, but that’s just how strange the GOP effort to block appropriations for Pennsylvania’s state-related universities — Penn State, Pitt, Temple, and Lincoln — looks to any student, faculty, or staff member. With the constitution requiring that two-thirds of the House approve state-related university funding, a handful of Republicans are holding out, arguing that the four institutions (including their police) should fall under the purview of Pennsylvania’s open records law if they want nearly $640 million in state funding this year.

Indeed, the Republican request isn’t out of the ordinary. Per an analysis I conducted of the Big Ten, all of Penn State’s peer public institutions are subject to expansive open records laws in their states.

Pennsylvania Republicans are right to push for more transparency at state schools — but for the wrong reasons.

While Republicans might think open records will give them access to ammunition in the culture war against educators and academia, many open records laws around the country protect academic freedom, medical information, and in-progress research.

Expanding open records would help faculty, staff, and student activists fight for progressive goals of racial justice, police reform, and labor rights at our universities. And Democrats should be fighting for it, too.

Rather than undermine faculty rights, open records keep the sun shining on university executives. This year, striking graduate workers at the University of Michigan used open records requests to track administrators’ spending on union-busting lawyers, while reporters at the Tampa Bay Times requested faculty retention data to monitor how Republicans’ anti-LGBTQ and anti-ethnic studies laws are draining Florida of talent.

But, at Penn State, a lack of administrative transparency stultifies student-activist efforts to improve university policy. New reporting from Spotlight PA and the Centre Daily Times documents how decentralization and institutional secrecy at Penn State inhibit timely responses to reports of misconduct and ethical violations.

No one quite knows what made university leaders cancel the promised Center for Racial Justice. There’s no information on which university police officers idled or received a pat on the back as white supremacists maced University Park students last fall. Advocates point out how the university selectively releases and omits survey results about handling reports of sexual violence. And amid allegations of racial segregation in housing and pay inequity, the data that could help investigate these claims remain under lock and key.

In every case, open records could unlock the safe.

Frankly, outside of the state-related universities’ lobbying arms, you’d be hard-pressed to find supporters of the current system and its opacity. Time travelers to 2008 would discover one in former Penn State President Graham B. Spanier, who testified that open records would make the university less competitive in faculty salaries and academic excellence. Spanier convinced legislators to exempt the universities from the state’s Right-to-Know Law.

Yet, with English teaching faculty struggling to afford medications on their salaries and Penn State ranked lower than nearly all Big Ten peers subject to open records provisions, Spanier’s reasons are no longer persuasive. Rather, in 2008, he might have had something else on his mind. Terry Mutchler, then-executive director of Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records, noted in 2012 that open records could have alerted the public to Jerry Sandusky’s serial child sexual abuse far earlier, of which Spanier’s mishandling led to a child endangerment conviction.

It’s not just Republicans or progressive student activists who want to see more transparency. In 2011, the New York Times editorial board railed against the open records exemption for Penn State. Former Democratic Auditor General Eugene DePasquale criticized the carve out in 2017. This year, even Penn State’s graduates took a stand. Alumni elected soccer star Ali Krieger to Penn State’s Board of Trustees on a platform that explicitly endorsed open records and data policies at the institution, alongside labor rights and climate action.

House Republicans’ efforts to reduce support for state schools as a way to undermine lifesaving gender-affirming care and leading medical research are downright odious. Higher tuition from held-up appropriations will mean more student debt, more late-night jobs, and more dropouts.

But if the only roadblock on the way to funding state-related universities is transparency reform, then Pennsylvania Democrats should follow the lead of 48 states: Implement open records at public universities so that students, faculty, and staff can hold their administrators, bosses, and law enforcement accountable.

Taran Samarth is a 2023 Penn State graduate and lifelong State College resident. They are the research and policy lead at Penn State Forward.