Utah’s highest court will soon consider the question of whether Brigham Young University’s police department should have to comply with the state’s open-records laws.
The Utah Supreme Court will hear the appeal filed by BYU lawyers earlier this month after a 3rd District Court judge ruled that the private university’s police force is a governmental entity that has to follow the same rules for transparency as other police departments across the state.
The ruling comes in a 2016 lawsuit filed by The Salt Lake Tribune, which has argued that the BYU police force should be open to public record requests because it has “full-spectrum” law enforcement authority under state law.