Court: NCAA must open FSU report
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – The NCAA must release documents on Florida State University’s appeal of an academic cheating penalty because they are public records, a state appellate court ruled Thursday.
A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal upheld a trial judge’s decision last month ordering the college athletics organization to make the documents public after blacking out students’ names.
That ruling had been on hold pending the appeal court’s decision. It was not immediately clear when the documents would be released to The Associated Press and other media that sued the NCAA, Florida State and the university’s outside law firm.
“This is a resounding victory for the public’s right to know,” said AP Assistant General Counsel Karen Kaiser.
NCAA spokesman Bob Williams said the organization was reviewing the decision and considering its options. They include asking the full 15-member district court to rehear the case or taking it to the Florida Supreme Court.
Attorney General Bill McCollum, whose office intervened, said the ruling “emphasizes the importance of applying the public records laws to new and evolving technologies.”
The NCAA tried to keep the documents secret by putting them on a read-only, secure Web site that could be accessed by Florida State’s outside lawyers rather than sending them to the university on paper or through conventional electronic means such as e-mail.
Florida’s open-records “sunshine” law covers “documents maintained on a computer in the same way that it would apply to those kept in a file cabinet,” wrote District Judge Philip Padovano.
The documents relate to Florida State’s appeal of an NCAA sanction to strip coaches and athletes of wins in 10 sports.
That includes football coach Bobby Bowden, who stands to lose 14 victories. It would dim his chances of again becoming major college football’s winningest coach. Bowden has 384 victories – two behind Penn State’s Joe Paterno.