The dean of the University of Georgia law school has ordered the University of Georgia's First Amendment law clinic to cease all work related to public records rights – including a lawsuit against the Atlanta Police Foundation, the nonprofit behind a planned $109 million training center popularly known as Cop City.
Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge gave the assignment to clinic director Clare R. Norins within weeks of the clinic announcing in February that one of its attorneys would represent digital news outlet Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC) and Chicago-based digital transparency research organization Lucy Parsons Labs in a lawsuit against the police foundation. Both groups filed the lawsuit after making numerous requests under Georgia's Open Records Act to the organization, which were ignored.
Ed Vogel, a researcher at Lucy Parsons Labs and plaintiff, called the timing of the decision “alarming,” adding that Rutledge “has a responsibility to be fully transparent about the reasons for the decision.”
The police foundation's attorney in the case is Harold Melton, a former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court who graduated from UGA and now teaches at the school.
Norins told plaintiffs in a Microsoft Teams meeting on April 5 that the law school's clinic was stopping its public records work because the school itself “is subject to public records requests, which creates a conflict of interest,” said Matt Scott, an editor at the ACPC. “That didn't make sense to me.”
Rutledge later wrote in a statement to the Guardian that the move was “part of an ongoing effort to bring the First Amendment Clinic's activities more into line with the institution's educational mission.”
This is “puzzling” considering that, according to its website, the clinic focuses on, among other things, “government transparency” and that “transparent government is essential to a free, open and democratic society,” said Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
“It's simply impossible to achieve that if the dean of the law school takes public records work off the table. Government transparency is made up of public records laws and public records disclosure laws,” he said.
The UGA clinic is one of at least a dozen law school clinics across the country that have the words “First Amendment” in their names, and nearly all of them prominently display their work with public records on their websites.
“It raises the question of what triggered this,” Paulson said of Rutledge's decision.
Susan E. Seager, a law professor and director of the Press Freedom Project at the University of California, Irvine, law school – which regularly sues state and local authorities for violating public records laws – called the law school's decision “outrageous and cowardly.”
“There could be no more important use of university resources than to inform the public about what goes on behind the closed doors of a powerful police organization that acts as a government agency,” Seager said.
The lawsuit itself was not dismissed and is now in the hands of private attorney Joy Ramsingh, who specializes in public document law.
“When a private company contracts with the government or performs functions on its behalf, its records are subject to public inquiry,” Ramsingh said of the case. “The entire purpose of the [Atlanta police] The purpose of the foundation is to support the Atlanta Police Department, so it would be difficult to find records that are not subject to public records law.”
If the foundation's position prevails, Ramsingh said, then “every government agency could have a nonprofit grantmaking association and … there would be no public records.”
Vogel described the foundation as “the object of one of the strongest movements in the United States.”
The fight against Cop City has made national and global headlines, especially since January 18 of last year, when state troopers shot and killed Manuel Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita, who was camping in protest in a public park near the Cop City site – the first such incident in U.S. history. Opposition to the project comes from a wide range of local and national supporters who raise concerns such as unchecked militarization of police and deforestation in a time of climate crisis. Atlanta police say the center is needed to provide “top-notch” training.
The Atlanta Police Foundation is one of the largest and best-funded among hundreds of foundations across the country. Its donors include companies such as Delta, Wells Fargo and Home Depot. Its CEO, Dave Wilkinson, is also the highest-paid CEO of police foundations nationwide, with a salary of $500,000 in 2022. Foundation spokeswoman Nikki Glanton declined to comment for this article.
Sam Barnes, also from the plaintiff ACPC, emphasized the position of the University of Georgia in the state's circles of power.
“When I was little, if you wanted to work in government, you had to go to UGA,” Barnes said.
Rutledge was an aide to Clarence Thomas and is depicted in a painting included in ProPublica's report on Republican donor Harlan Crow's gifts to the Supreme Court justice.
“The fact that this institution, which embodies and constitutes such a large part of our state's power structure, is limiting itself from providing a critical tool for government transparency is appalling and disappointing,” Barnes added.
The decision does not only affect the Cop City case. Several local press outlets have expressed concern this week after learning that free legal assistance in public records will be eliminated. Appen Media, based in the suburbs north of Atlanta, wrote: “[j]Journalists across Georgia mourn the loss of a vital service.”
However, the lawsuit against the police foundation could have implications beyond Georgia, Vogel said.
“If it is decided that they are subject to open records,” he said, “it will set a precedent that others across the country will follow.”
