Does the sun really shine at Ohio University? An investigation into the university's compliance with Ohio’s Sunshine Laws

Top keywords of all active and closed requests received by Ohio University that have taken more than 100 days to fulfill. Data visualization by Audrianna Wilde.

Note: This story is written as a first-person narration of a reporter’s investigation to learn more about Ohio University’s compliance with the state of Ohio’s Sunshine Laws to which it is bound. The reporter felt that as a student at Ohio U, writing the story this way would be the most honest. It includes their perspective as an investigator.

As a student entering their third year of studying journalism at Ohio University, I am no stranger to requesting public records. Journalism courses offered through the university require that I exercise my data-gathering skills by requesting public records from government and public agencies and understand the history and importance of open records, not just as a journalist, but as a United States citizen.

Becoming law in 1967, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guaranteed the public’s legal right to obtain access to records generated by federal agencies. Following suit, many states passed laws requiring the openness of state, local and public agencies. Today, all states have passed these laws. Known as Sunshine Laws, these laws promote transparency by guaranteeing public access, and therefore public scrutiny, to records and open meetings.

As a state-supported university, Ohio U is subject to Ohio’s Sunshine Laws. Due to the ambiguous nature of these laws, along with my own experiences with troubles requesting records from the university, I was curious to see how much time the university was taking to fulfill requests.

Public access granted by Sunshine Laws varies from state to state. While some states’ laws closely mirror the federal FOIA, others have broader laws that allow for agencies to have more flexibility. Ohio is one of these states.

“One of the big things about Ohio Sunshine Laws is it's pretty vague on how much time that an agency has to comply with a FOIA request,” said Dr. Aimee Edmondson, an author and professor in media law and journalism history at Ohio University, in a phone interview.

The 2022 Sunshine Laws Manual, which is updated annually by Ohio Attorney General David Yost’s Public Records Unit reads, “There is no set, predetermined time period for responding to a public records request. Instead, the requirement to provide ‘prompt’ production of records for inspection has been interpreted by the courts as being ‘without delay’ and ‘with reasonable speed.’” 

FOIA differs from this state law in the sense that it requires federal agencies to respond to a request within 20 business days unless there are "unusual circumstances." 

The manual adds that the definition of “prompt” may vary on a case-by-case basis. Examples of instances where this may occur are, but are not limited to, if a request needs to be clarified or revised by the requester, if the information must be located or compiled or if the information must be reviewed to have redactions made. 

“The problem with the Ohio law, and any law that doesn't give a specific timeframe, is there's no deadline,” Edmondson said.

However, Edmondson noted she has found many agencies with specific deadlines tend to wait until the latest possible date to deliver.

“Well, if you think about that, what's 20 (business) days? It's a month,” Edmondson said. “It just kind of feels like, ‘Oh, there's no rush at all, just take a month to comply,’ And to me, a month is too long.”

Edmondson added one of the major downfalls of Ohio’s broad Sunshine Laws is that, because there is no deadline, there is more responsibility on requesters to become “professional naggers.”

Ohio U’s Media Relations Manager Jim Sabin, stated in an email that “Ohio University strives to be transparent with the public it serves, as evidenced by our rating Highest Achievement in the Open and Transparent Government Award from the Ohio Auditor of State’s StaRS rating program in March 2021.”

To put the university’s compliance to the test, I sent a request to Legal Administrative Assistant Shelly Bean, the university’s point of contact for requesting public records.

On March 1, I requested documents that contained all records requests sent to the university from 2019 to 2022, including the dates the requests were made, the current statuses of the requests, summaries of the requests, and, if applicable, the dates that the requests were closed. 

On a phone call with Bean, I was informed that the system the university used for tracking public records requests changed in May 2019, and therefore there was no prior data available. Bean also stated that, if I were to request the names and affiliations of those who had requested records, I would not receive the data I hoped for in a timely manner, as the names would have to be reviewed to ensure that all necessary redactions were made. Already, I was off to a rough start.

Upon seeing the information for the first time, I immediately noticed many requests that had yet to be fulfilled were incredibly old. As of March 21, 2022, the date I received the data, Ohio U’s oldest active request was 1,369 days old, roughly three years and nine months. A very short yet intriguing summary of the request reads: “Final Results/Disciplinary Hearings.”

This is not the only request that has sat patiently in an Excel sheet, waiting to eventually be fulfilled. Nearly 38% of Ohio U’s 58 active requests have taken 100 or more days to be completed. All active requests have been active for at least 20 days.

However, to assemble a proper and fair investigation, I requested the same data from The Ohio State University. Immediately, I began noticing differences in compliance. I received the dataset in 12 days. Additionally, although I had specified that I would not require the names and affiliations of the requesters in the interest of time, I was given the information anyway.

From there, the differences continued to be staggering. Only about 13% of Ohio State’s 39 active requests have been so for at least 100 days. Roughly 72% of these requests have been active for 20 or more days. While I felt that the university could continue to improve its compliance with the law, this was notably better than Ohio U.

Looking through the lists of both universities' closed requests, I noticed a similar pattern. Nearly 52% of the requests Ohio U has received and fulfilled since 2019 have taken more than 20 days to fulfill, and around 14% have taken more than 100 days. At Ohio State, those percentages are only about 34% and 6%, respectively.

These statistics seem to reflect part of a larger problem that occurs with all public access laws, which Edmondson pointed out: “There's not teeth in the law.”

In most states, including Ohio, as well as at the federal level, if an agency does not comply, there is no penalty. Those who come face to face with an agency that refuses to comply have the option to sue, however, this costs money and time – resources that a requester may not have.

As a university that has been nationally recognized for the quality of its journalism school, this compliance, or rather the lack thereof, is unsettling. Students, much like myself, who are trying to nurture their skills are met with an unwilling university that prefers to take it slow. 

Those who are working on stories for courses, student publications or on their own time are compelled to decide between devoting extra time out of their already hectic schedules or giving up. Deadlines, graduation, the end of the academic school year and the newsworthiness of the information after time has passed are additional factors that students must consider. I am left to wonder: Is the university taking advantage of us?

“There are too many instances where I see (Ohio University) taking much too long,” Edmondson said. “And here again, I worry that they are taking advantage of student journalists because they feel like they can. It's disrespectful, and it's against the law.”

To view an interactive visualization of the data compared in this story, click here.