In 2021, NonDoc, an online news outlet, filed a lawsuit in Cleveland County District Court asking a judge to order the release of two reports prepared by the Jones Day law firm for the University of Oklahoma, including one report dealing with sexual allegations against former OU president David Boren.
More than three years have passed and OU continues to oppose transparency regarding the reports.
In 2018, OU hired the Jones Day law firm to investigate allegations that the school provided false reporting on alumni giving to U.S. News and World Report to inflate OU’s ranking in that publication’s annual “best colleges” survey.
The false reporting reportedly began in 1999 during Boren’s tenure as president, which ran from 1994 to June 30, 2018.
In February 2019, it was reported that the firm’s investigation was expanded to include allegations that Boren sexually harassed aides.
The university reportedly paid the Jones Day firm more than $1 million, but OU officials have refused to release either of the resulting reports.
William W. (Tres) Savage III, editor-in-chief of NonDoc, has argued the public has the right to know what transpired at OU, which is supported by taxpayer dollars, especially since the reports were also funded with taxpayer dollars.
In a March 6, 2024, article on the case, Savage noted that many of the related court filings contain “significant redaction on some documents, a visually humorous but practically problematic situation that underscores how hard OU is fighting to keep the public from knowing what it learned about the serious allegations at hand.”
“While OU officials and regents have largely refused to discuss the investigations’ findings, it’s worth remembering that Jones Day found something worthy of disclosing donor data misreporting to U.S. News & World Report and something worthy of David Boren resigning and relinquishing ‘his affiliation with the University of Oklahoma,’” Savage noted (emphasis in original).
Notably, Boren’s successor as OU president, James Gallogly, has said he believes OU should publicly release the Jones Day reports, saying they belong to the taxpayers, tuition payers, and public who made OU’s existence possible. Gallogly served as OU president for just over a year before stepping down in 2019.
In the most recent development in the case, Judge Michael Tupper has ordered OU to submit the two reports to the court for review. Tupper gave the university 90 days to submit the reports, including 60 days to inform 62 individuals interviewed by Jones Day that the reports would go on permanent record with the court.
Mike Burrage, an attorney representing OU, argued “that the reports should not be released because it contains sensitive information that witnesses gave in confidence, which could result in future lawsuits against the university,” the Norman Transcript reported.
( https://www.normantranscript.com/news/court-to-require-ou-to-submit-reports-on-alleged-boren-misconduct/article_df0b2602-f6d8-11ee-867a-3b2b5a6c9ced.html )
Lin Weeks, senior staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which is representing NonDoc in the case, welcomed the judge’s decision. Weeks noted that OU’s legal team has sought not only to prevent the release of the reports but also to bar reporters from being in the courtroom in some instances.
“Public court proceedings build trust in the judiciary and keep courts accountable,” Weeks said.
“We’re glad the court ordered briefing on this issue because, as we argued last month, the law does not support the rare and drastic measure of closing the courtroom in this situation.”
NOTES: For more stories about higher education in Oklahoma, visit AimHigherOK.com. Ray Carter's news story first appeared online, here: https://ocpathink.org/post/independent-journalism/ou-continues-to-fight-transparency-on-boren-allegations . For more information on the case, visit the NonDoc website, here: https://nondoc.com/ . News stories have regularly chronicled the lengthy winding road of the aforementioned transparency litigation brought by Tres Savage.
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