The Georgia Supreme Court decided in the Board of Regents’ favor in June to allow the information regarding research done by a Kennesaw State professor to be released through the Georgia Open Records Act.
A watchdog group called the Campaign for Accountability first appealed the case to the Georgia Supreme Court in February earlier this year. The case is against the Consumer Credit Research Foundation, a payday lending group that tried to prevent the BOR from releasing information to the CfA through the Open Records Act.
On June 18, the Georgia Supreme Court decision unanimously ruled in favor of the CfA and BOR, arguing that the Open Records Act states that information requested by the watchdog group is not “required” to be disclosed, but they ruled that the release is not “prohibited.”
“Read naturally and reasonably, [the laws] do not prohibit disclosure of records simply because those records are not required to be disclosed by a specific exemption from the Open Records Act’s general disclosure duty,” the Supreme Court opinion reads. “Because the records [the CCRF] seeks to keep confidential are not subject to any prohibition against disclosure, we reverse the Court of Appeals judgment.”
Associate Dean of the Graduate College and Professor of Statistics Dr. Jennifer Priestley said that she agrees with the court’s final decision and believes it will bring about greater transparency not only to her study but also to others in the future.
“Transparency in a research context, particularly in academia, is always good,” Priestley said. “Transparency is the hallmark of scientific and mathematical integrity. I think everybody benefits from it.”
Priestley said she still believes the CCRF “didn’t do anything wrong” when the group came to KSU to propose their research. She said she believes the CfA is not looking for the truth by submitting this open records request for the correspondence between her and the CCRF. She said they are likely looking to use the information out of context because of the highly politicized nature of the study’s topic.
The case was initially filed after the CCRF contracted KSU in 2013 to conduct a study involving payday loans and their financial impact on borrowers. KSU later commissioned Priestley to conduct the study.
After Priestley published results of the 2014 study, the CfA requested the release of any correspondence between Priestley and the CCRF through the Georgia Open Records Act.
According to the supreme court opinion, the CCRF subsequently filed a complaint to the superior court, where the group argued that information requested by the CfA is exempt from disclosure under the Open Records Act.
The act states that public disclosure is not required for records that are “in the conduct of, or as a result of, study or research” by certain agencies, including universities and their faculty members.
In August 2016, a trial court originally ruled in the BOR’s favor, stating that the board could release the information, but was not required to under the Open Records Act. The CCRF then took the case to the court of appeals in May 2017, and the court decided in favor of the CCRF based off of a previous Georgia Supreme Court decision.
The CfA did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
