Five years after two students and a graduate of Western Washington University sued the university for withholding sexual assault records, a judge has awarded them $111,780 in penalties.
Erasmus Baxter, Asia Fields and Julia Furukawa filed a lawsuit in Whatcom County Superior Court through attorney William John Crittenden on May 1, 2019, arguing that Western had violated the Washington State Public Records Act by redacting nonexempt information in responsive public records and by failing to explain why records were redacted.
The three, who have all since graduated from Western’s journalism program, requested records in 2018 about sexual offenses committed by students. Western’s response three weeks later redacted the names of the offenders.
In an oral judgment on Thursday, May 2, Judge David Freeman ruled that he would penalize Western $15 per day for 276 days, multiplied by the 27 student names that were withheld — amounting to $111,780, Crittenden said.
Crittenden said on Friday, May 3 that the decision that the former student journalists were correct and entitled to penalties was a “foregone conclusion,” and this week’s ruling was about how much of a penalty the court was going to award.
Crittenden said they attempted to settle with Western in the fall but were “lowballed.” The hearing to determine the penalties took place last month.
In court documents, Western suggested a penalty within the range of $138 to $2,208, while Crittenden requested a penalty of $745,200.
Western declined to comment on the case.
Crittenden said one of the most important takeaways from the decision was that the judge agreed with the graduates that each of the 27 student names was an “important, separate public issue,” and potentially 27 separate news stories. The judge awarded penalties accordingly.
Fields said she was glad to see the judge recognize the importance of these records and the consequences of Western withholding them.
“Every single one of those names was a case that severely impacted someone and a piece of information that students and student journalists really needed in order to report on matters of Western community safety,” said Fields, now an engagement reporter at ProPublica.
Baxter said they wanted to send a message to the university that it can’t just “wait out students,” and need to take student journalists seriously.
“I think the judge’s ruling really did validate the importance of the information and the importance of the work we had been doing on reporting issues and how the university was handling sexual misconduct,” said Baxter, who previously worked as a staff writer at Phoenix New Times. “I hope now that the university has kind of gotten the message that — now that [it’s] costing you $100,000 — that it’s good to take students seriously.”
Fields said one of her main takeaways from the process is that Western likely wouldn’t have released the records if they hadn’t sued.
“We really, really tried to talk to them beforehand,” Fields said. Court documents outline the emails the students sent and the conversations they attempted to have with Western, to explain why the names were releasable under state law.
“It’s also unfortunate that it takes that much to get to something like this, especially since most people in general don’t have the time to spend on something like this,” Fields said.
Fields added that she hopes this case shows students the importance of public records, and the importance of getting to know the Public Records Act so they can push back.
“Even if a student doesn’t want to go up to the point of filing a lawsuit, I hope that they’ll see there’s really valuable information to be learned from making public records requests,” Fields said.
From here, Crittenden said there might be further proceedings on attorneys fees, or those could be decided by agreement. He expects the final order within a week or two.
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
