The Kentucky Attorney General has ruled that Western Kentucky University violated the open records law by turning down requests from two student newspapers for sexual misconduct investigations into school employees.
In a ruling issued Monday, Attorney General Andy Beshear and Assistant Attorney Gordon Slone found WKU did not follow state law and ordered the university to "make immediate provision" for student reporters to inspect documents related to the investigations.
A reporter for the Kentucky Kernel, the independent student-run newspaper for the University of Kentucky, requested in October all investigative records for "Title IX investigations into sexual misconduct allegations levied against university employees in the past five years."
A reporter for Western's school newspaper, the College Heights Herald, made a similar request in November.