DTH Media Corp. v. Folt
| Decision Date | 01 May 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 142PA18,142PA18 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina |
| Parties | DTH MEDIA CORPORATION, CAPITOL BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC., THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER PUBLISHING COMPANY, and THE DURHAM HERALD COMPANY v. CAROL L. FOLT, in her official capacity as Chancellor of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and GAVIN YOUNG, in his official capacity as Senior Director of Public Records for The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
DTH MEDIA CORPORATION, CAPITOL BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.,
THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER PUBLISHING COMPANY,
and THE DURHAM HERALD COMPANY
v.
CAROL L. FOLT, in her official capacity
as Chancellor of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
and GAVIN YOUNG, in his official capacity
as Senior Director of Public Records for The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
No. 142PA18
SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA
May 1, 2020
On discretionary review pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-31 from the decision of a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals, 259 N.C. App. 61, 816 S.E.2d 518 (2018), reversing a judgment entered on 9 May 2017 by Judge Allen Baddour in Superior Court, Wake County. Heard in the Supreme Court on 27 August 2019.
Stevens Martin Vaughn & Tadych, PLLC, by Hugh Stevens and Michael J. Tadych, for plaintiff-appellees.
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Stephanie A. Brennan, Special Deputy Attorney General, and Matthew Burke, Solicitor General Fellow, for defendant-appellants.
J.D. Jones Law, PLLC, by Jonathan D. Jones for Student Press Law Center and Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, amici curiae.
Fox Rothschild LLP, by Troy D. Shelton for Victim Rights Law Center, N.C. Coalition Against Sexual Assault, National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, National Network to End Domestic Violence, and the N.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence, amici curiae.
MORGAN, Justice.
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This matter presents questions which require this Court to interpret the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the North Carolina Public Records Act (the Public Records Act) in order to determine whether officials of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH or University) are required to release, as public records, disciplinary records of its students who have been found to have violated UNC-CH's sexual assault policy. The Court of Appeals unanimously determined that such records are subject to mandatory disclosure. We affirm.
This case arises out of a dispute between various news organizations and officials of UNC-CH's administration. Plaintiffs DTH Media Corporation; Capitol Broadcasting Company, Inc.; The Charlotte Observer Publishing Company; and The Durham Herald Company (collectively, plaintiffs) are news organizations based in North Carolina which regularly report on matters regarding UNC-CH. Defendants are Carol L. Folt, the former Chancellor of UNC-CH and Gavin Young, the Senior Director of Public Records of UNC-CH (collectively, defendants). Plaintiffs brought this legal action against defendants in the defendants' official capacities for alleged violations of the Public Records Act. The Act was enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly in order to make public records readily available because they "are the property of the people." See N.C.G.S. §§ 132-1 to -11 (2017). Defendants contend that they are prohibited from complying with the Public Records Act in light of
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applicable provisions of FERPA. The parties stipulated to the following facts, which were adopted by the lower courts and utilized in their respective determinations in the controversy prior to this Court's involvement.
Since 2014, UNC-CH has adhered to its comprehensive "Policy on Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment and Related Misconduct" that includes prohibitions on, and potential punishments for, sexual-based and gender-based harassment and violence. In a letter dated 30 September 2016, plaintiffs requested, pursuant to the Public Records Act, "copies of all public records made or received by [UNC-CH] in connection with a person having been found responsible for rape, sexual assault or any related or lesser included sexual misconduct by [UNC-CH's] Honor Court, the Committee on Student Conduct, or the Equal Opportunity and Compliance Office." The letter was addressed to officials of UNC-CH, including defendant Young. In a letter dated 28 October 2016 and signed by Joel G. Curran, UNC-CH's Vice Chancellor for Communications and Public Affairs, UNC-CH expressly denied plaintiffs' request. In his letter, Vice Chancellor Curran asserted that the records requested by plaintiffs were "educational records" as defined by FERPA and were thus "protected from disclosure by FERPA."
After subsequent communications between the parties, including mediation proceedings which were conducted pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 78-38.3E, plaintiffs narrowed the scope of their request for records which were held in the custody of UNC-CH to: "(a) the name of any person who, since January 1, 2007, has been found
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responsible for rape, sexual assault or any related or lesser included sexual misconduct by the [UNC-CH] Honor Court, the Committee on Student Conduct, or the Equal Opportunity and Compliance Office; (b) the date and nature of each violation for which each such person was found responsible; and (c) the sanction[] imposed on each such person for each such violation." UNC-CH denied plaintiffs' revised, more limited request on 11 November 2016 during an in-person meeting, and further reiterated to plaintiffs on 18 November 2016 that the University would continue to decline plaintiffs' request for the records at issue pursuant to FERPA.
On 21 November 2016, following the continued denial of their request, plaintiffs filed a complaint and sought an order for defendants to show cause under the Public Records Act and the North Carolina Declaratory Judgments Act. See N.C.G.S. §§ 1-253 to -267. Plaintiffs sought in relevant part: (1) a preliminary order compelling defendants to appear and produce the records at issue; (2) an order declaring that the requested records are public records as defined by N.C.G.S. § 132-1; and (3) an order compelling defendants to permit the inspection and copying of these records, pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 132-9(a) in their capacity as public records.
Defendants filed their answer to plaintiffs' complaint and petition for the show cause order on 21 December 2016, claiming that "FERPA, a federal law that preempts the Public Records Act, strictly prohibits" the disclosure of the records at issue. More specifically, defendants asserted UNC-CH's position that
[u]nder FERPA, the University has reasonably exercised
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its discretion not to release this information, because doing so would breach the confidentiality of the University's Title IX process and would interfere with and undermine that process. More specifically, disclosure of this information would deter victims from coming forward and participating in the University's Title IX process, thus preventing victims from receiving the help and support available to them through the University's Title IX process and preventing the University from learning about potential serial perpetrators, which would undermine the safety of the campus community. Additionally, disclosure of this information would permit the identification of victims by members of the campus community who know their relationship to the responsible person and by providing the responsible student motivation to reveal the name of the victim, which would lead to victims being re-traumatized. Such disclosure would deter the participation of witnesses and further impede the University's ability to render a fair, just, and informed determination, and jeopardize the safety of students found responsible during the Title IX process by placing them at risk for retribution.
Following a hearing on plaintiffs' request for declaratory judgment which was conducted on 6 April 2017, the Superior Court, Wake County entered an order and final judgment filed on 9 May 2017 which, inter alia, denied plaintiffs' request for a declaratory judgment in determining that defendants were not required to produce the student records requested by plaintiffs.1 In reaching its decision, the trial court concluded that the Public Records Act does not compel the release of public records where an exception is "otherwise specifically provided by law," and agreed with defendants' position as expressed in the trial court's order and final judgment, that
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[i]n 20 U.S.C. § 1232(b)(6), FERPA grants the University the discretion to determine whether to release (1) the name of any student found 'responsible' under University policy of a 'crime of violence' or 'nonforcible sex offense,' (2) the violation, and (3) the sanction imposed. The University may disclose (but is not required to disclose) this information only if the University determines that the student violated the University's rules or policies.
In applying principles enunciated in the United States Constitution and pertinent cases of the Supreme Court of the United States, the trial court entered conclusions of law that the doctrines of both field preemption and conflict preemption operate to implicitly preempt, by force of federal law, any required disclosure by North Carolina's Public Records Act of the requested records. Plaintiffs appealed the portion of the trial court's order and final judgment relating to the denial of access to the student records in dispute to the Court of Appeals.
In addressing the respective arguments of plaintiffs and defendants, the lower appellate court's analysis of the questions presented for resolution included the following subjects: the Public Records Act enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act enacted by the United States Congress, the interaction between this state law and this federal law regarding their individual and joint impacts on the present case, and principles of federal preemption. In an effort to promote efficiency and to diminish repetition, we shall integrate the parties' respective arguments, the Court of Appeals' determinations, and the Court's conclusions throughout our opinion's overlapping treatment of them.
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A. The legislative enactments
Plaintiffs initially asked defendants to provide copies of all public records made or...
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