Wisconsin high court boosts public access to certain records
By The Associated Press
07.04.02
MADISON, Wis. — Officials should publicly release police records about allegations of misconduct against a teacher and statistics on University of Wisconsin applicants, the state Supreme Court ruled this week in two decisions stressing access to certain public documents.
The cases could help clarify the state's Open Records Law, which was opened to new interpretations in the wake of several state court cases.
The Supreme Court altered the law with its 1996 Woznicki decision that said people have a right to be notified before certain documents naming them are released. However, the court did not specify which documents.
Sandra George, executive director of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, said the July 2 decisions are good news, but there is still confusion about the release of public records.
"The factual situations vary in every single open-records case. That's why the open-records law before Woznicki was so much better. Then, the presumption (of openness) took care of almost everything," she said.
"Now when you have a different factual situation for every record, and you have to have a Supreme Court decision for every record, do we really have open records?"
The court ruled unanimously July 2 that Neenah officials should release a police report on an investigation into allegations teacher Armand Linzmeyer engaged in inappropriate conduct with some of his female students. The court said any sensitive information should be blacked out, but the public interest in reviewing the allegations outweighed the teacher's privacy interests.
"Linzmeyer's position is one where the public should be able to expect some increased accountability," Justice Jon Wilcox wrote for the court.
Linzmeyer, who taught math at Neenah High School and served as the girls volleyball coach, was not arrested or prosecuted as a result of the investigation, and he was not disciplined by the school district.
He was reassigned to other school duties and agreed to resign at the end of the year, according to court records.
The parents of two of the girls involved, along with The Post-Crescent newspaper of Appleton, filed an open-records request for the police report after the investigation concluded in December 2000.
Linzmeyer then sued to prevent the records from being released.
The Winnebago County Circuit Court ruled that the records should be released, and the Supreme Court upheld that ruling July 2, saying the police report falls under the Open Records Law.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to the circuit court to determine what information — if any — needed to be blacked out.
"We hope the court was sending a clear signal that such records are in the public interest, and we hope the ruling helps clarify that in future cases," said Andrew Oppmann, executive editor of The Post-Crescent.
The other case originated from a plan by the Virginia-based Center for Equal Opportunity to study the effect of race and ethnicity on the University of Wisconsin System's entrance decisions. The center sought admission records from 11 university campuses, the UW Law School and the UW Medical School for 1993 to 1999, according to the court decision.
The requested records included such statistics as test scores, class rank, grade point average, race, gender and ethnicity.
The university provided 390 pages of documents on its admission practices, but refused to provide specific admissions records because of privacy concerns and because the university believed the law did not require it to create records that didn't previously exist, the decision said.
The 4th District of Appeals ruled that all the records must be kept confidential under federal law. But the Supreme Court reversed that ruling July 2, saying the law only applies to information that could be used to identify specific students.
Since none of the information requested by the center included such information, the UW System should comply with the request for students who enrolled and those who applied, with personal information blacked out. The court said the UW should charge the center for its costs.
"We reiterate that Wisconsin prefers open government and public accountability, and 'only in an exceptional case may access be denied.' ... This is not an exceptional case," Justice Patrick Crooks wrote for the court.