A civil lawsuit between MSU and ESPN Inc. involving 301 student-athletes' crime records was closed today with the Michigan Supreme Court ruling in favor of ESPN. MSU will now have to provide the information of the student-athletes who were suspects in criminal cases.
In Sep. 2014, ESPN filed a Freedom of Information Act to MSU for public police records that involved student-athletes as suspects, victims or witnesses. MSU provided the records, but the names of the athletes were redacted. ESPN then sued MSU in order to obtain the redacted information.
The records were requested as part of an Outside the Lines investigation which investigated police departments at 10 major universities to determine if student-athletes and students are prosecuted at the same rate.
MSU officials believe releasing the names of the student-athletes would be a breach of privacy.
"Unless you are charged with a crime your information shouldn’t be made public,” MSU Spokesman Jason Cody said earlier this year.
The case has been heard in the Ingham County Circuit Court and the Court of Appeals. In both court houses it was concluded ESPN Inc. did have a right to know the names of the student-athletes because it was pertinent to the public's understanding of a government body — the MSU Police Department.
In a Supreme Court order sent out Wednesday, Judge Stephen Markman offered his dissenting opinion and said, "I am not yet persuaded that the balancing process in this case, requiring the disclosure of unredacted campus incident reports sought by plaintiff, will serve FOIA’s core purpose without infringing the privacy interests of some affected students."
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