STUDENT PRESS LAW CENTER

The Student Press Law Center is an advocate for student free press rights and provides free legal help and information to students and educators. (www.splc.org)

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Hooked in Arizona

The students from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University have produced a follow-up to 2015′s “Hooked: Tracking heroin’s hold on Arizona” with a new investigation focused on prescription drug abuse in the Grand Canyon State. And it’s airing on Arizona broadcasters statewide tomorrow evening. The new documentary, “Hooked Rx: From Prescription to Addiction,” is produced in conjunction with Cronkite News and the Arizona Broadcasters Association.

The documentary will air across 30 television stations and 97 radio stations on January 10 at 6:30 pm (there’s some variance, check local listings). After the broadcast, ABA is sponsoring a call center with trained addiction counselors for Arizonans who would like to reach out. 

Our collective hats are off to the enterprising students and faculty at the Walter Cronkite School for illustrating the impact, once again, of investigative reporting on communities, families, and individuals. This is student media. This is why we fight to #CureHazelwood.

For those of you outside, the documentary can be viewed on the Hooked Rx website the night of the broadcast, alongside several multimedia features. 

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High School opinion column discusses redistricting, drops the evidence hammer on school board

We don’t usually delve too deeply into opinion columns (unless dastardly school administrators force us to remind them of that pesky First Amendment thing everyone’s always going on about). That said, editorials can play an illuminating a crucial role in a news organization’s conversation with their community. Some colleges offer dedicated j-school courses in the labor of writing a considered, well-reasoned, and evidence-based editorial.

It’s what separates newspaper editorials from think-pieces, and the online editor for Washington-Lee High School’s Crossed Sabres did the thing.

In his “Open Letter to the School Board,” Matthew Herrity discussed the issues of diversity and segregation with regard to the board’s redistricting plans. And, ya’ll, he did not come empty-handed. He brought maps:

He brought data:

Everyone, he brought scatter plots:

Seriously, someone sponsor this kid’s IRE membership. Wrapping up, Herrity suggested some changes to the board’s “Boundary Refinements” presentation:

This exceptional example of research and community dialogue resulted in an editorial that successfully takes an otherwise “boring” government topic (redistricting) and makes it relevant and engaging to the school community. Or, as I once heard a speaker at IRE entreat us all to do, Herrity made the broccoli beautiful. Furthermore, this story is an example of healthy and constructive dialogue between students and their school. Instead of punishing or stifling the message, this editorial elicited a response from the chair of Arlington Public School Board, Nancy Van Doren. Van Doren applauded the editorial, stating: “Mr. Herrity’s piece is well-written and passionate and we thank him for his letter. We welcome and encourage all students’ input.”

She goes on to explain the board’s reasoning for its decision. Whether the students or community members agree with her assessment or not, the doorway is open for communication and debate thanks to student journalists discussing a crucial issue with thorough reporting (and a dash of salt).

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Divisive events strain community

Echo is continuing to investigate the recent incidents at Park, both alleged and confirmed, and will continue to follow events as more information becomes available. Echo’s Maggie Bahnson, Mimi Fhima, Hannah Leff, Sumaya Mohamed, Devin Raynor, D’ayvian Robinson, Annabella Strathman and Sophie Yarosh contributed to this report along with reporters Raphy Gendler and Sam Orloff.

Students at the Echo news site of St. Louis Park High School wrote this comprehensive and compelling examination of the physical altercations, online arguments, and public discussions that have occurred in and around their school since the 2016 election.  If you look at the byline and list of contributors, you’ll see many students worked to bring this in-depth story together. This is a fantastic example of the manner of important community reporting conducted by involved student media. They are continuing to report on the complicated and contentious issues facing their school, and providing a voice for everyone involved.

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Is your campus orienting new students ... or hazing them?

A program for newcomers at the University of Albany sounds more like induction into a cult than new-student orientation, complete with lockdowns, tightly scheduled cellphone hours and a rule against interacting with “outsiders.”

The Albany Student Press brought the university’s indoctrination rituals to light as a result of a freedom-of-information request for the code of conduct for UAlbany’s “Educational Opportunity Program.”

Among the bizarre provisions: Any student who falls asleep in class is confined to his room on mandatory bed rest, forbidden from having visitors or ordering food. Also: any student who wants to go home to visit family on the weekend must submit a “reason” in writing in advance. 

UAlbany administrators defend the rigorous behavioral contract as a necessity to prepare EOP participants (who come from academically or economically disadvantaged backgrounds) for the demands of college life.

But Albany Student Press reported that, until disclosed on the newspaper’s website, the terms of the EOP are not publicized and are presented to participants only on-site after they enroll and show up.

“Good behavior contracts” that students are forced to sign as a condition of participation in campus activities are, at a public university, constitutionally questionable. Whether a college can -- and should -- treat students like children at sleep-away camp (or like inmates) is a valid subject for student journalists to inquire about.

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“Find your voice. Own your voice. Don’t be afraid.”

Five college journalists drawn from campuses from coast-to-coast got a two-day crash course in movement-building from experts in the legal, nonprofit and public-relations fields. The Aug. 18-19 workshop marked the kickoff of the inaugural round of Active Voice fellowships, awarded to college students with inventive ideas about improving the press-freedom climate in high schools.

Read more here.

We’re so excited to have you, and can’t wait to see your projects!

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We were crazy impressed by our Fellowship applicants, and we can’t wait to see what these determined young journalists accomplish in the next year. It’s time to talk back!

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How safe is off-campus student housing... and who’s checking?

The Maryland panhandle town of Frostburg, home to 5,300-student Frostburg State University, decided in 2014 to “privatize” the inspection of rental properties formerly checked by city employees.

Now, the city is out of the safety business, and landlords are free to hire their own inspectors.

How’s that working out? 

According to research by the independent student newspaper, The Bottom Line, about like you’d expect. Either because the inspections aren’t getting done, or because of the city’s Stone Age record-keeping system, it’s impossible for a renter to document that any properties have been checked for fire safety since the end of 2014.

City codes require properties to be inspected once every three years, but reporters examining city records couldn’t find up-to-date inspection records for some 700 units. That’s three-quarters of all the rental homes in town.

These inspections matter. When they were getting done by city employees before 2014, the inspections were routinely turning up safety hazards including inadequate fire exits, missing smoke detectors and non-working fire extinguishers. (Some eye-popping reporting by The Boston Globe’s famed “Spotlight” team has similarly highlighted the hazards of overcrowded “student ghetto” housing where cash-strapped renters endure firetrap conditions, with sometimes tragic results.)

This is potentially lifesaving public-records journalism that students in just about every campus community can and should be doing. Who’s responsible for inspecting health-and-safety conditions in rental properties in your community? (You might find out, it’s the landlords themselves.) And what consequences result from being out of compliance? How easy is it for renters to find out whether their buildings are safe? Are inspection reports made available online, or easily retrievable at City Hall? 

And one more: Who’s making money off student rentals? In Frostburg, the largest landlord turns out to be ... the mayor. Whose administration no longer rigorously checks up on tenant safety.

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$19,000 for “public” information?

How much would it cost to access a year of campus police incident reports regarding sexual assault at Michigan public universities? Almost $5,000. 

And how much would it cost to receive the discretionary spending from every university’s president or chancellor? At least $10,000.

Student journalists in the Central Michigan University chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists conducted a statewide Freedom of Information Act audit to see whether Michigan colleges would release information and how much they’d charge. Spoiler: a lot. 

The students requested board of trustees expenses, presidential discretionary spending and sexual assault police incident reports. The total cost was over $19,000. 

Some universities charged as high as $78 an hour for staff to compile and review the information. Only two universities — Michigan Tech and Eastern Michigan University — granted all three requests for free, and Lake Superior State University provided the presidential and trustees expenses for free and the town police provided the sexual assault reports for $50.

This audit was enlightening to show how the cost of public information can be so prohibitive that it’s no longer truly public. 

“Students do not have the means of acquiring factual information about their campuses,” Arielle Hines, CMU SPJ president said. 

That’s where college media comes in. Take inspiration from these student journalists and conduct an audit of your state, or at least your university. Are the costs of public records requests prohibitively expensive? Shame your university by publicizing the high price tag. And reach out to the SPLC with any questions about what cost is appropriate and what is sketch.

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Don’t let colleges keep their records under lock and key

A set of master keys to access residence halls at the College of William and Mary were missing for 12 days before police were told, the student newspaper The Flat Hat reported.

Student journalists requested the police report of the investigation and found that campus officials were supposed to immediately notify the police, but waited almost two weeks — which is possibly a Clery Act violation. 

Administrators alerted students of the missing key 13 days after it was reported missing.

“The implication of that 13-day time span is huge, as anyone could have had access to every single door on campus, and nobody aside from the people looking for the key would have known about it,” The Flat Hat wrote in an editorial.

The investigation eventually concluded that the keys were probably lost and not stolen. But students would have never known that their safety was endangered for almost two weeks if it wasn’t for the Flat Hat’s public records request. 

This Sunshine Week, take a page out of their book. Request the police report for any investigation that your college has reported. Colleges are required to notify students of security risks that are reported to campus security or local police agencies — get in the practice of requesting the police report every time to hold your college accountable. 

Use our public records letter generator to help. And if you go to a private university, still request the records — and tell us the response with #StopSecretPolice, because the SPLC believes all campus police should be required to make their actions public. Find out more.

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Half of Ohio university employees broke open-records law, student-run audit finds

Today marks the first day of Sunshine Week — a journalist’s favorite holiday. To celebrate, The Post, the student newspaper of Ohio University, conducted an audit of Ohio universities’ compliance with the public records law. In January, student journalists across the state requested the same five public records at 12 universities.

They found that nearly half of the public university employees who were asked for public records failed to follow state law. School employees followed the law for 34 requests out of 60, but mostly by sending the requests to the universities’ legal offices. Records were only provided in seven instances. 

The remaining 26 requests, the Post reports, were denied or obstructed. Ohio’s public records law does not require requestors to identify themselves, but the employees asked nearly half of the auditors to do so. When the student journalists refused, they were directed to legal offices or blocked entirely from access to records.

“The results show that state university officials have some work to do to ensure they readily comply with open records laws,” Dennis Hetzel, president of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government, told the Post. 

Read the full results from the investigation here. The Post also started a separate website, OhioAudit.org, with a more detailed methodology and an interactive map of the universities’ compliance.

Consider conducting your own audit with your student newspaper — team up with student journalists at other schools in the state to mimic the Post’s work, or request records from various departments at your school. See how many university employees have a full understanding of the open records law, because that has a real and important impact on citizens’ and journalists’ access to information. Use the SPLC’s free letter generator to help form your requests.

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When there’s smoke, there’s fire — but where? Investigating the location of on-campus fires

Half of all reported fires in George Washington University residence halls started in kitchens over the last six years, the GW Hatchet student newspaper uncovered. 

The paper requested records from D.C. Fire and EMS to find out that 13 of the 26 fire incidents on campus since 2010 started in a dorm kitchen — 10 of those incidents were started when the kitchen while an appliance was on. Eight times, a stove was left unattended.

Officials had not released the details about the fires before the Hatchet requested the records. The newspaper also learned that one kitchen fire led to $150 in damages to property and a dryer fire resulted in $350,000 in damages to the equipment. In 2011, one student sustained minor burns on his arm and wrist from a grease fire, the documents showed, and in 2014, a firefighter was injured while responding to a stove fire.

This is important information because as the Hatchet reported, experts said the university needs to have educational awareness programs and fire safety programs to prevent future fires. GW does not have any mandatory fire prevention programs for students living on campus. 

It’s a good first step to know the pattern of fires in residence halls. You can request these records at your own campus — your local fire department and EMS should have this information. Use the SPLC’s public records letter generator for help in wording your request.

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Trailblazing Female Journalists | Amy Poehler's Smart Girls

Even as journalism evolved into one of the most important professions of the nineteenth century, women were frequently prevented from access to newsrooms and faced heavy discrimination where they were allowed, historically writing under pseudonyms or anonymous bylines. But as the world evolved, so did journalism — and here are four extraordinary women who paved the way

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Is your university investing money in companies with ties to genocide?

Student reporters at The Battalion at Texas A&M University investigated how their university and the University of Texas were investing their endowments of billions of dollars — and discovered some money was invested in companies with direct ties to the 2005 Sudan genocide.

In part I of the Battalion’s report, the reporters detailed the University of Texas Investment Management Company’s investment in 10 of 25 companies that the Texas Comptroller’s office has said had direct ties to the genocide.

The Battalion also found investment in companies affiliated with foreign corruption, human rights violators and Iran sanctioned companies.

Texas law bans investment of certain government funds in companies tied to the genocide, but the university fund is not included in the ban. A 2009 bill to keep UTIMCO from investing in the genocide-affiliated companies died in committee.

The remaining parts of the Battalion’s report will be published online and in print throughout the week.

Texas is not unique. A number of universities have divested in companies associated with the Sudan genocide — including Georgetown, Notre Dame and Harvard. Is your university one of them? This is a great story for college media to explore.

For universities with private endowment funds, information can be scraped from their IRS Form 990. While the form and foundations may seem intimidating at first, the SPLC’s guide to access university foundation records can make things more clear. 

Looking at individual investments can be newsworthy in itself, depending on the company’s industry. At Harvard, students have opposed the endowment’s investment in fossil fuels.

— Corey Conner 

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UNC blames records requests for spending $7.5 million on PR and legal help

On Monday, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced — because of a public records request — that it has spent more than $7.5 million on legal and public relations help for an ongoing scandal of academic irregularities and athletics.

One of the "unprecedented combination of simultaneous issues” UNC listed to explain the astronomical price tag? “Two pending public records requests — the largest in University history.” 

One of those requests was made by Bradley Saacks, director of enterprise for the Daily Tar Heel. The other was made by the Raleigh News & Observer. 

Both requests were for the records used by former federal prosecutor Kenneth Wainstein’s team to create its report on the scandal. UNC wrote that this database makes up 5 million pages and UNC must “review every page to protect privacy rights and, if necessary, to redact or withhold confidential information.” (Both requests were made in fall 2014; the university has released 214,550 pages so far.) 

In a column for the DTH, Saacks wrote that UNC shouldn’t list public records requests alongside other “scandal-related fallouts,” like a pending NCAA investigation and various lawsuits. 

“By blaming the media, the University is once again playing the victim. The University is not the victim,” Saacks wrote. “I would not have made the largest request in University history if the worst  scandal in University history was not still going on ... If anything, the powers-that-be at the University should invite more public record requests — especially if they are serious about moving forward.”

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Follow the millions

The Daily Tar Heel found out that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill paid more than $342,000 to a New York City law firm for one month of work — before the university received approval to hire the firm. 

The Daily Tar Heel requested emails, contracts and bills from the university to uncover the timeline and the large amount of money being spent for the firm to help UNC with its “numerous pressing legal challenges.”

The law firm has charged the university more than $2.7 million from December to May (including the $342,000, but not including the bills for June, July and August), the paper found. 

But UNC, which has been notoriously tight-lipped with disclosing records, did not release a list of the exact services.

“Despite the invoices being public record, the University will not publicly release an itemized version of Skadden’s bill to precisely identify the “legal services rendered” or explain the monthly “expenses,” often climbing above $10,000, paid to the company,” the article said. 

Follow the money on your campus. Is your public university using a law firm or a consultant? Request the bills. And use the Student Press Law Center’s public records letter generator to help. 

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How much — or little — are adjunct professors at your college paid?

In the academic hierarchy, adjunct professors are at the bottom rung of the ladder. They’re professors who serve on short-term contracts without the possibility of tenure. For the past several years, debates have been swirling in academia over whether these professors are underpaid or exploited.

Student reporters are delving into the issue and getting answers. A Columbia Spectator investigation culled salary data from adjunct pay stubs over the spring and summer and found that adjunct pay at Columbia ranges from $4,500 to $15,000 per course among 10 different arts and sciences departments. The base pay is $5,000 per course, which can be increased at the department’s discretion. Only the visual arts department pays adjuncts below the base pay rate, which hasn’t changed in over a decade, according to a professor interviewed in the investigation.

The chasm between the low and high ends of the pay spectrum is wide. But overall, according to one professor in the investigation, pay at Columbia is higher than at many universities.

Note that many of the professors in the article requested anonymity. This is a wall you’ll often hit in stories about faculty pay; professors are afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs, particularly adjuncts who have little to no job security. Anonymity should rarely be used in any form of journalism, but sometimes it’s necessary, especially to tell the stories of employees who have little negotiating power. Be careful with it, however, and review the Student Press Law Center’s guide to protecting sources and information first.

Be sure to verify your facts independently, as the Spectator reporters did through the pay stubs. Try to source and verify your data with hard numbers from official sources, such as public records requests. Average salary data can often be found online for employees at public institutions.

Also, the Chronicle of Higher Education is gathering pay and other data about adjuncts across the country — search their database for your college.

Make sure not to let anonymity become a vessel through which disgruntled sources funnel their personal vendettas or grudges. Anonymity should be a last resort used in covering stories that challenge powerful people and institutions.

— Tara Jeffries

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How do you know if your college is providing enough mental health services?

When a student attempts to take their life on-campus, how much is a university held responsible?

At Indiana University, a long wait list meant an imminently suicidal student was placed at the end of a two-week wait queue. During this gap in care, the student attempted suicide.

In a special investigation, the Indiana Daily Student looked into this case and found that their counseling center had serious holes in the care they offered. Under the guidelines set by the International Association of Counseling Services, IU was nine counselors short of the recommended 31, the IDS found.

The reporters also used the data to see how Big 10 schools matched up in comparison, and found Northwestern and Rutgers Universities were the only schools that followed the recommended student-to-counselor ratio.

IDS did a deep dive into the services offered by IU’s program, breaking down the different types of sessions into an easy-to-read graph that showed how demand for services has increased over the years. The report also explored the center’s budget to see the costs of services, sources of funding and plans for expansion. 

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported a discrepancy between family expectations for top care at expensive elite universities and what schools say these programs can feasibly offer. Critics point to long wait times plaguing college counseling services, and schools have scrambled to find solutions, adding quick-fix emergency hotlines and group sessions.

The pressure is high for schools, who can also face lawsuits from families of the deceased or survivors who felt their cases were largely brushed off by the counseling staff.

But when these cases pop up, there is no clear legal case, since there is no nationwide standard for what qualifies as strong mental health care. Schools respond by saying that they provide as many counselors as their budget allows, and that the demands are so high it is impractical to have a counselor instantly on-call for everyone.

They aren’t exaggerating about demand: The Center for Collegiate Health found that in the last school year, almost half of college students attended counseling for mental health, and counseling centers are getting busier.

To duplicate IDS’ investigation into your school’s counseling services, use the guidelines of 1 counselor per 1,600 students to see if it measures up. Then, request the size and average time of the wait list for a student at your university’s center. Also request the center’s budgets over the past decade to see how funding has changed over the years and what future proposals are.

For help with records requests, check out the SPLC’s public-records letter generator.

(Post updated 9/29 to correct information about the other Big 10 schools.)

— Allison Kowalski 

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Indiana students’ public records audit finds one-third of state agencies to be non-respondents

Are government agencies in your state compliant with public records laws? Three graduate students at Indiana University surveyed 90 county agencies across the state and found that nearly half failed to obey the Indiana Public Records Act.

According to the Indiana Daily Student, media students Craig Lyons, Samim Arif and DeJuan Foster audited digital public records access in the state by emailing requests to commissioner’s offices, sheriff’s departments, and health departments in 30 randomly selected counties.

Two of the 90 agencies told the reporting team that they did not have a public email address and were taken out of the study. Of the remaining 88 agencies, 48 responded within the legal limit of seven days. Of the final 40, only 10 responded to the reporter’s follow-up calls.

This made nearly one-third of the agencies non-respondents, the IDS reported.

This investigation echoes the 1997 audit done by the Indiana Coalition for Open Government and seven Indiana newspapers that found that many public officials were ignorant of state’s open records laws, and there were few consequences for those in violation.

Lyons, Arif, and Foster encountered confusion and miscommunication about the law, not just among individual employees, but within the same agency.

Reporters obtained search warrant documents and were allowed to take pictures with their cell phones without a problem from courthouses in Greene and Lawrence Counties, but they received mixed messages from clerks in the Monroe and Owen County courthouses. Responses varied day-to-day even within the same courthouse, the IDS reported.

Reasons given for not responding also varied among agencies, including emails not sent to the right person, requests for more information, or officials who thought they didn’t need to respond to be in compliance with the law.

Miscommunication is common in state agencies, and officials might not have across-the-board knowledge about public records disclosure. Therefore, it’s important to not take a rejection at face value. If a record-keeper cites a specific exemption to releasing the records, ask to see it.  

Knee-jerk responses like “FERPA” (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) or “personnel matter” do not legally protect nearly as many pieces of information as officials say. For examples, check out our blog FERPA Fact, where our attorneys fact-check school administrators’ use of FERPA to deny public records requests.

— Trisha LeBoeuf