Editorial: After PSU scandal, public has ‘right to know’

It’s time that Pennsylvania citizens have the right to know. It’s time that Pennsylvania citizens have the right to know.

The Right to Know Law is an open records law that provides public access to public information. And the four state-related universities in Pennsylvania — Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln — are exempt in crucial ways from the state Right to Know Law, whereas the state’s public schools must comply with the law.

Although the state-related universities are different from those that are part of the State System of Higher Education — state-related tuitions are higher, and they receive less money from the state — they are still public entities that are wrongfully exempt from the law.

Any cent an organization receives from the public should be properly documented, its purpose should be laid out in simple language and budgets should be readily available to the public. After all, don’t we deserve to know where taxpayer money is going?

There have been rumblings of adjusting the Right to Know Law to include the state-related universities, and we think that potential legislation couldn’t come soon enough.

With the events unfolding at Penn State, said legislation would be timely. Former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of sexual assault toward eight children. With those involved trying to defend themselves and several administrators under national scrutiny, the truth would come to light much sooner if the school’s records were available to the public.

Most recently, assistant coach and key witness in the Sandusky case Mike McQueary has been placed on paid leave from the university. According to The Patriot-News, he claims he told university police about what he saw. This contradicts the grand jury report, which states, “[McQueary] was never questioned by University police and no other entity conducted an investigation.”

With so many people affected and wanting to clear their names, what better way to bring quick justice than making university records available to the public? Unfortunately, the Penn State scandal can’t be helped now, but if the university had been subjected to the Right to Know Law beforehand, the scandal could have come to light earlier and justice very well might have been served.

It’s likely there would have been written documents. Even if not, the unfortunate events at Penn State indicate that the state-related schools cannot operate effectively without state oversight.

More than ever before, past, present and future students should have the right to know what’s going on at their universities. The value of their degrees is tied to their respective universities’ reputations, which are always in flux. The successes of the schools that operate under the Right to Know Law are a clear indicator that open record policies do not prevent universities from excelling. If anything, it’s commendable that their records are available. It would take a lot of effort to prevent something akin to the Penn State scandal from leaking to the public. In essence, it would be an honorable policy for a school to adopt, even if the law did not require it.

By exempting state-related schools from the Right to Know Law, our ability to function as students is crippled. We are hurt by what we don’t know, as evidenced to an extreme degree in the middle of the state.

We’ve had it with all the secrecy. Open the books.