 | Bob Gabordi is executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee.com. He can be reached through this blog, at bgabordi@tallahassee.com or (850) 599-2177 |
In a short and sweet letter through its local attorney, the NCAA denied Florida State University’s demand that the NCAA release documents that nearly everyone but the NCAA seems to think are public records.
“We believe there are numerous Constitutional issues, together with several other legal defenses and factual questions to be resolved first,” said the letter, signed by E. Thom Rumberger, an attorney with offices in Tallahassee and across the state.
The Tallahassee Democrat and nearly 20 other media organizations and news outlets have filed suit against the NCAA and Florida State to force the release of documents related to the NCAA’s investigation of FSU’s academic cheating scandal and its proposed punishment of the university.
The media outlets, FSU and the Florida attorney general’s office have all told the NCAA that we believe the documents are public records, regardless of the fact that the NCAA only transmitted them to FSU by allowing FSU’s attorney to view them on a password-protected, read-only Web site.
A scheduling hearing on the case is planned for today. Attorney General Bill McCollum has asked the judge for permission to join the case. At a time when none of the media outlets or FSU – or the AG’s office, for that matter – has the extra cash on hand, this is an expensive fight with a principle that makes it worth spending the money.
If nothing else, I’m curious about how the NCAA, a private organization, justifies its actions on constitutional grounds.
Obviously, and understandably with litigation in the works, the NCAA isn’t going to say much more until the matter goes to court.
But it would be nice if it would at least say which nation’s Constitution allows a private administrative agency to bully a state university, thumb its nose at the public’s interest and ignore a demand from the Florida’s attorney general that it comply with the same laws as everyone else.
If the courts allow the NCAA’s Web-site transmittal work around of Florida’s public-records laws, everyone will do it that way and the law itself will be rendered unworkable.
That just doesn’t seem to fit with the mission of an organization that once – but no longer – stood for the purity of amateur athletics, fair play and other goals that seemed so admirable.
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