The Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision in a case filed by a former Reveille editor-in-chief against LSU, ruling that LSU must release internal investigation records about a former administrator accused of catfishing students.

Josh Archote, former Reveille editor-in-chief, filed the case in 2023 after LSU refused to release records concerning an internal investigation into former assistant director of Greek Life, Donald Abels. Abels was under investigation for allegedly creating fake Snapchat profiles and posing as a new fraternity recruit to catch pledges for underage drinking violations.

In a statement, LSU spokeswoman Meg Sunstrom said that LSU is “currently evaluating the opinion to make a decision about whether to appeal” as of Friday. LSU has just under 30 days to appeal the decision.

Archote began looking into the case in late 2022 after reading an article by the student newspaper at Sewanee: The University of the South, The Sewanee Purple, that raised concerns over Abels’ recent hire to the university given LSU’s previous investigation.

The investigation began in 2019 with LSU Police, who concluded that Abels had been creating fake Snapchat profiles to catfish and entrap fraternity pledges. LSUPD concluded that Abels had not broken any criminal laws, so it referred the case to LSU for an internal investigation.

“I wanted to follow up on how LSU handled that situation, since it was referred to them for an investigation, but we hit a wall with them whenever we requested the records,” Archote said.

LSU denied Archote’s request for the records of the investigation. Archote worked with lawyers from the Tulane Law Center and sued the university for release of the records in January 2023, but a Baton Rouge judge ruled against him based on the precedent set by McMakin v. LSU, a 2021 case argued over the same documents that gave LSU the right to deny public records requests over privacy concerns. The court ruled that Abels’ interest in privacy outweighed the public’s interest in the request.

Archote appealed, and the appellate court reversed the 2024 decision on Aug. 20, ruling that LSU has to release the records of the investigation.

The ruling reads, “we have determined that the Records Custodian [LSU President] failed to prove Mr. Abels had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information regarding the internal investigation of his alleged catfishing of LSU fraternity members.”

The ruling goes on to state that simply classifying employee personnel files as confidential does not prove a reasonable expectation of privacy, and it points out that if such were the case, “a public body could shield any public document regarding an employee from public disclosure by merely filing it away in his personnel file.”

If the appellate ruling stands, it will set a precedent that LSU cannot deny public records requests simply on the basis of an expectation of privacy, even if the documents in question are filed into an employee’s personnel files.

The post Appellate court rules in favor of former Reveille editor in public records case against LSU appeared first on Reveille.

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