It has been widely reported that several Freedom of Information Act Letters (FOIA) went out to Big Ten institutions requesting information and communications surrounding the league’s decision to postpone the fall football season. Those letters were drafted by well-known attorney and player advocate Tom Mars’ office and reportedly went to all thirteen public Big Ten members. Northwestern was excluded because they are not subject to open records law.
Buckeyes Wire has spoken to Mars and received confirmation that a letter was sent to Ohio State as a part of the effort for more transparency surrounding the decision and what types of communications went into such a monumental decision that affected so many.
“I can confirm that I’ve sent comprehensive FOIA requests to all Big 10 public universities (13) per rights afforded by the public records laws in eleven different states,” confirmed Mars in an email to Buckeyes Wire.
In response, a spokesman for Ohio State has confirmed the university received the letter from Mars’ office last Saturday. OSU also acknowledged receipt of the communication to Mars and is says it is working on a reply through email.
Buckeyes Wire is also in possession of the FOIA letter request that can be found in the below attachment.
The request is broad and detailed and is looking for all manners of communication that would have occurred between athletic director Gene Smith and president-elect Kristina Johnson with Big Ten representatives.
Under Ohio Open Records Law, OSU’s response falls under a rather ambiguous “reasonable period of time,” meaning it could be longer than other Big Ten schools and states that have a specific timeframe assigned their applicable legislation.
We’ll have much more on the status of all of this over the next few days.
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