Pennsylvania Open-Records Laws
In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky trial, there has been much talk about whether Penn State should suspend its elite football program, whether the iconic Joe Paterno statue should be removed, and whether more top brass at the university should be fired. These questions all deal with punishing the university for protecting a child predator. But a more pressing matter is how to ensure that such horrors never happen again.
That’s why we strongly support legislation that would bring Penn State under Pennsylvania’s open-records laws. Though supported by tax dollars, Penn State, Pitt, Temple, and Lincoln universities all are inexplicably exempt from Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law. That means Penn State’s records, including police reports, are closed to public view.
“Even the FBI must comply with open records filings, but not Penn State’s cops,” writes columnist Al Tompkins in Northwestern University’s Poynter.org. “That would become a key way the 1998 report about sexual misconduct by Jerry Sandusky stayed hidden for more than a decade.”