Editor’s note: This article contains reference to sexual assault.

North Carolina’s public universities are obligated to release certain disciplinary records of students found responsible for sexual assault under the state’s public records law. 

But a Technician investigation found those institutions stall for months to release these records, a move First Amendment lawyers said shrouds public information in secrecy.  

From 15 UNC System universities, Technician sought three years’ worth of public records that contain the name, the violation and resulting sanction of students found responsible for rape, sexual assault or other sexual misconduct. 

At NC State, it took the University nearly five months to release this information.

Technician filed identical public records requests with 14 other UNC System universities in early January. Of these, six schools responded. Just four provided responsive records. 

It’s been three months, and the requests are unfulfilled at the eight remaining schools.

Technician’s findings underscore a troubling trend, said Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center. Public agencies are ridden with delays across the country, but he said the problem becomes particularly acute when the public is denied timely access to campus safety records that it’s entitled to.  

Delays have gotten ‘out of hand,’ lawyers say 

Public agencies in North Carolina are required to respond to records requests “as promptly as possible,” but the law doesn’t give agencies a hard deadline.

This means the wait time for public records, which the law says are “property of the people,” can drag on, and on, and on.

“There’s really not a lot of consequences,” Hiestand said. “You just defy the law.”  

Elizabeth City State University was the first institution to provide sexual misconduct records to Technician, in 12 business days. East Carolina University provided the records in 25 business days, Western Carolina University in 33 and UNC-Chapel Hill in 59.

Two other schools closed Technician’s request and said they don’t have such records: North Carolina A&T State University, which closed the request in four business days, and UNC Pembroke, which closed it in 13.

Certain student disciplinary records are public record in North Carolina thanks to a four-year legal battle put to rest by the state Supreme Court in 2020, which ruled that the name, violation and disciplinary sanction of students found responsible for sexual misconduct is public information. 

Hugh Stevens, the attorney who successfully represented a coalition of media outlets in the lawsuit, said he’s not shocked by the length of time some universities took to respond, but he’s disappointed that more than half have left the request unfulfilled. 

“If my child were a student at any of these schools, I would want to know what the history is,” Stevens said. “If they’ve not had anybody severely punished for sexual misconduct, does that mean that there’s been no sexual misconduct worthy of punishment, or does it mean they’re just not dealing with it?”

Locating public records responsive to a request can take time, said Brooks Fuller, an attorney and former director of North Carolina Open Government Coalition, and before they’re released, public agencies must review each record and redact confidential information.  

But in the case of North Carolina’s flagship universities, Fuller said he thinks it’s “borderline malpractice” to have inefficient public records fulfillment processes.

“There’s an old phrase that justice delayed is justice denied, and in the case of public records and public information, that principle is equally true,” Fuller said. “Any day that passes following a records request is another day that members of the public are less informed than they could be about some significant public issue that affects them.”

At NC State, delays give rise to transparency concerns

NC State’s public records request portal is beleaguered by backlog. It warns requesters that it’s “currently managing a large number of complex requests,” and most requests take three to six months to fulfill. 

Recently, the University took 86 business days to provide a single police report on a campus sexual assault. 

NC State’s seen a higher volume of public records requests in recent years, said Mick Kulikowksi, University spokesperson, via email. In fiscal 2023, it received 308 requests, a 45% increase from the previous year, and there’s just one person responsible for fielding those: the University Records Officer. 

Recently, the University has published some public records connected to the environmental contamination investigation underway in Poe Hall. The day NC State said it received the first PCB testing report from external consultants, it published the report online. It published earlier PCB testing reports of Poe Hall and D.H. Hill Jr. Library on March 5. 

Still, Fuller said the University should proactively publish records responsive to all requests.  

“It stifles the free flow of information to keep these public records as some sort of secret or closely guarded information,” Fuller said.

Two University spokespeople didn’t respond when asked twice to comment on the three-month delay to provide one police report and broader transparency concerns. 

Hiestand said the transient nature of the student body at universities can make it difficult to hold public officials accountable.

“School officials know that students have an expiration date,” Hiestand said. “And student journalists will come and go, and if they could just outlast the ones that are actually really trying to exercise their rights under the law, it’ll go away, and they will never have to deal with it.”

“The only thing that’s going to force some sort of change here is some sort of public accountability,” he added. “Journalists, especially student journalists, they really do have to push school officials to do the right thing.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing relationship violence, sexual violence, stalking or any other form of interpersonal violence and are in need of advocacy services, the NC State Women’s Center has trained advocates available to offer crisis intervention, emotional support, resources and referrals. Students can contact the 24/7 Sexual Assault Helpline at 919-515-4444 or email [email protected] to schedule an appointment with an advocate.

Advocacy services through the NC State Women’s Center are available for all students inclusive of all gender identities and sexual orientations.

For more information on advocacy services, please visit go.ncsu.edu/supportsurvivors. If you would like to talk to a confidential resource, you can also connect with the NC State Counseling Center at 919-515-2423. You may also visit go.ncsu.edu/safe for additional information on resources and reporting options.