So for those of us interested in the release of public records, specifically involving schools and internal investigations, here is a recent decision from a local court stating that investigation records cannot be released basically because the school district already named the teacher involved when he was first put on leave.
I’m not going to get into it because I’m covering it, but I’d be interested in anyone else’s thoughts.
A Grays Harbor Superior Court judge extended an order Monday blocking the Elma School District and other authorities from releasing investigation documents regarding a high school teacher.
Judge Gordon Godfrey upheld and expanded his Jan. 2 ruling that prevented the district or investigators from releasing information on Elma social studies teacher Sean Ekerson.
Ekerson, who also served as head wrestling coach, was put on administrative leave late last year while the school investigated allegations he had a relationship with a student.
An investigation by the Elma Police Department did not result in any charges. After a separate investigation by the school district’s insurance carrier, Ekerson returned to teaching in February. He did not return as wrestling coach.
Godfrey seemed to accept the argument that it was unfair to release investigative information on allegations, that were, as Ekerson’s attorney said, unsubstantiated.
“This is like wearing a scarlet ‘A’,” the judge said, before announcing his ruling. “Anyone can make these kinds of allegations.”
Ekerson’s attorney Rick Cordes argued the public has no interest in the documents, which would only further embarrass Ekerson and violate his privacy over “rumors, innuendo and hearsay.”
Godfrey made his decision in response to public records requests for copies of the investigation documents from The Daily World and The Vidette. Daily World reporter Steven Friederich, acting as an individual, has filed a broader request, asking for information on any misconduct allegations involving Elma teachers during the past 12 months.
The argument over these particular records aside, I think it’s a scary example of the attitude that newspapers will print any lurid details we can get our hands on. Releasing records does not mean every controversial piece of them will end up on tomorrow’s front page. If newspapers can’t get those records, how can they earn that trust?
The newspapers-as-smutmongers attitude always bothers me most from inside the criminal justice system, because I’d like to think that if anyone understand what it’s like to have your commitment to public service tainted by a few bad apples, it would be police officers and judges.
” I’d like to think that if anyone understand what it’s like to have your commitment to public service tainted by a few bad apples, it would be police officers and judges”
Police officers and judges routinely see people falsely accused and know the damage it can do. I don’t know if the accusations at issue were motivated by malice or ignorance but the mere fact that they were made against a public employee does not justify giving them wider distrubution.
Some times we have to take “no” for an answer. Making a broad request for “any misconduct allegations involving Elma teachers during the past 12 months” could be seen as retaliation. Combing through a year’s worth of records could be quite a burden on a small school district.
Police officers and judges also routinely convict or accuse innocent people, since it’s an inevitable hazard of their job. Maybe it’s more accurate for me to say that both professions (journalism and criminal justice) have the common goal of seeking truth, and neither trusts the other to do it very well. That balance of mistrust is what gives hope to the wrongfully accused and unvindicated victims in this country.
On the second point, I have a lot of sympathy for the clerks and paralegals who get stuck responding to difficult public records requests. Some have horror stories to tell, and I’ve heard them. But a “difficult” public records request is often just exposing a poorly organized system, and isn’t that also something the public ought to know about? I mean, if it’s a small school district and they have more misconduct allegations than they can keep track of, wouldn’t that be a little troubling? If I were a parent with a child in that district, I would feel like I had every right in the world to know what’s going on and judge the situation myself.
I think the point here is that something changed after the allegation, since the man is no longer coaching the team, and that warrants an explanation. Maybe it’s a perfectly benign and boring explanation, which would mean all the more reason to just go ahead and tell people. The only thing that can banish rampant rumor is truth.