USC promises to reform its open-records policy after facing several lawsuits

The University of South Carolina is changing how it handles public records requests following several lawsuits against the school in recent years.

In January, USC hired a Freedom of Information Act coordinator and plans to create an online open records portal “to make it easier for people to file and track their requests,” USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said in an email.

“We believe having a dedicated resource for responding to Freedom of Information requests will better ensure consistency, timeliness and provide greater public transparency,” Stensland said.

USC’s FOIA coordinator is a temporary, hourly employee, but that’s only because she was hired during a freeze on full-time hires, Stensland said. USC intends to eventually make the FOIA coordinator a full-time position, Stensland said.

The Freedom of Information Act is a state law that allows any member of the public to formally request documents from a public agency and sets a time limit for responding to requests. Salaries, public employee personnel files, formal complaints, text and email correspondence between public officials, contracts and more are all covered under the law. There are several exceptions to the law, such as documents relating to ongoing investigations and private information such as Social Security numbers.

The move comes after several recent lawsuits against USC for failing to provide requested records within the time frame required by law. The most recent suit, brought by The State Media Co.’s parent company in late 2020, yielded records that produced an article about students and faculty alleging USC failed to respond to reports of sexual harassment.

This is not the first time USC has, in the wake of a lawsuit, promised to fix how it handles FOIA requests. In 2019, after a Charleston man sued USC for unlawfully withholding public records, USC settled the case, promising to fix how it handles FOIA requests, The State previously reported

To submit a FOIA request to USC, send an email to FOIA@sc.edu.

This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 2:42 PM.