Mass. Court to Hear Crimson Lawsuit to Make HUPD Files Accessible

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (SJC) will likely hear a lawsuit in April brought by The Crimson to obtain wider access to Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) records, according to lawyers involved in the case.

Currently, HUPD releases daily crime logs to The Crimson and on its website, in addition to circulating community advisories following important crimes, but HUPD does not release the detailed incident reports on which the daily logs and advisories are based.

“It’s incredibly hard to check the validity of the logs if you don’t have the ability to check the incident reports,” said Amber R. Anderson, The Crimson’s lawyer.

“The log isn’t a sufficient answer to the public’s right to know,” Anderson said.

In the hearing before the SJC, Harvard will likely present an argument that hinges on concern for victim privacy.

“[HUPD] performs many additional functions unique to a college campus that are not related to crime,” said Joe Wrinn, a Harvard spokesman, in a statement.

For example, if a student were injured and called HUPD, HUPD would transport the student to UHS, Wrinn said, adding that a regular police force would not do this.

Wrinn said that reports arising from special functions like this should not be made public due to privacy concerns.

Lauren A.E. Schuker ’06, president of The Crimson, wrote in a e-mail that the paper’s coverage of crimes “has suffered and continues to do so” because of HUPD’s policies.

“We cannot accurately and fully report on incidents ranging from racial profiling to suicide to sexual assault without these records,” Schuker wrote.

A Middlesex Superior Court justice dismissed The Crimson’s suit last year, siding with Harvard’s attorneys. The justice maintained that HUPD officers were private employees and not subject to public records laws.

In the lawsuit, which was initially filed in 2003, The Crimson argued that since HUPD officers are given police powers by the state, the records they create on the job should be public.

The Cambridge Police Department (CPD), whose jurisdiction overlaps with HUPD’s, is subject to public records law and releases incident reports upon request.

The Crimson filed an appeal shortly after the March 2004 dismissal.

Last month, the SJC opted to hear The Crimson’s case directly, bypassing the state appeals court.

Out of more than 200 cases heard by the SJC last year, only 38 were selected by the court to bypass appellate review, according to a court spokeswoman.

The Crimson’s lawsuit has attracted the attention of other college newspapers, including the Boston College Heights and the Brown Daily Herald, as well as several journalism associations. In total, seven such groups filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of The Crimson’s position.

“If the SJC sided with Harvard, it would be a blow to our mission as college journalists,” said Ryan Heffernan, editor-in-chief of the Boston College Heights. “It impairs our ability to report news and creates a hazardous situation for students.”

Like Harvard, Boston College operates a private police department in close proximity to a public force. Even though the private force has specific jurisdiction over Boston College, as HUPD does over Harvard, Heffernan said that his paper was more likely to call the Boston Police Department when reporting a crime, “because we don’t have to jump through hoops” to get reports.

The eventual decision of the SJC could affect private police forces at colleges and universities across the state.

Although legislation is pending that would require private police forces to release incident reports, there is no direct precedent in Massachusetts for either side’s position (please see story, page A1).

When Harvard and The Crimson argue in front of the SJC later this year, they will face a court with close ties to Harvard. Four of the seven justices—Roderick L. Ireland, Judith A. Cowan, Robert J. Cordy, and chief justice Margaret H. Marshall—graduated from Harvard Law School.

In addition, Marshall was Harvard’s General Counsel and Vice President until 1996.

Marshall will likely excuse herself from the case, according to Leonard M. Singer, a lawyer for several of the groups that support The Crimson.

—Staff writer Brendan R. Linn can be reached at blinn@fas.harvard.edu.