{"id":1103,"date":"2025-11-05T15:24:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2025-11-05T15:24:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:24:16","slug":"pa-court-orders-release-of-penn-state-trustee-records-to-spotlight-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/pa-court-orders-release-of-penn-state-trustee-records-to-spotlight-pa\/","title":{"rendered":"PA Court Orders Release of Penn State Trustee Records to Spotlight PA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Cornell First Amendment Clinic student Devin Brader-Araje, J.D. \u201926, arguing before a three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania on September 9, 2025, on behalf of news outlet Spotlight PA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has ordered the state Department of Education to release Penn State University Board of Trustees records<\/a> to investigative news outlet Spotlight PA<\/em>. Spotlight PA<\/em> is represented by the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic and co-counsel the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dispute began in May 2023 when Spotlight PA<\/em> filed open records requests with the Pennsylvania Departments of Education and Agriculture seeking documents the agencies\u2019 secretaries used while serving on Penn State\u2019s governing board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fall of 2023, the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records determined that requested records must be made public under the state Right to Know Law. Penn State and the Department of Education appealed, arguing that they were not subject to the RTKL and did not possess or control the records because the materials were stored on Diligent, a cloud-based file-sharing platform. The agencies further contended that disclosure of unredacted information could harm the university\u2019s finances and employee retention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commonwealth Court rejected Penn State and the Department of Education\u2019s arguments as \u201cwithout merit,\u201d warning that \u201c[h]olding otherwise would perversely incentivize Commonwealth agencies, local agencies, and affected third parties like Penn State to utilize remote servers and\/or cloud-based services, in order to ensure that they would no longer need to disclose what would otherwise constitute public records.\u201d Allowing such a result, the Court said, \u201cwould run contrary to the RTKL\u2019s remedial purpose and the General Assembly\u2019s intent that the RTKL be used as a vehicle for increasing and ensuring government transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis decision is a major victory for government transparency and accountability,\u201d said Devin Brader-Araje, a Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic student who argued the case at the Commonwealth Court. \u201cThe Court made clear that government officials cannot use technology to hide public information from the public. The ruling reaffirms that Pennsylvania\u2019s Right-to-Know Law will continue to serve its intended purpose of ensuring open access to government records.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Brader-Araje, the team that worked on the case included the Clinic\u2019s Associate Director Heather Murray, who manages the Clinic\u2019s Local Journalism Project<\/em>, RCFP attorney Paula Knudsen Burke, former extern Nyssa Kruse and former student Robert Plafker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The Local Journalism Project <\/em>provides pro bono legal assistance on behalf of news outlets, journalists, researchers and other newsgatherers in aid of their critical function of reporting and communicating important news and information to their communities. The Local Journalism<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project <\/em>also provides counsel on a range of issues crucial to the operations of community newsrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For coverage of the case, visit the following link: https:\/\/www.spotlightpa.org\/statecollege\/2025\/10\/penn-state-pennsylvania-commonwealth-court-public-records-penn-state\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
10\/20\/2025<\/strong>: opinion<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has ordered the state Department of Education to release Penn State University Board of Trustees records to investigative news outlet Spotlight PA. Spotlight PA is represented by the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic and co-counsel the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The dispute began in May 2023 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,9,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions\/1109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornell1a.law.cornell.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}