Pennsylvania’s highest court has denied Penn State’s request to overturn a ruling to give the public and Spotlight PA access to Board of Trustees documents.

The state’s supreme court denied “a petition of allowance of appeal” from Penn State and the state Department of Education on Tuesday. Penn State is ordered to turn over documents that are related to a private trustees’ retreat and a private board meeting, which both happened in 2022. It was also ordered to unredact portions of a document given to trustees on altering Penn State’s budget and its “fiscal challenges,” which was handed out in 2022.

Spotlight PA originally filed public record requests with Pennsylvania’s agriculture and education departments for records that the agencies’ secretaries had while serving on the Board of Trustees.

While Penn State is largely exempt from open record laws, a 2013 court ruling said that records the secretaries received as trustees could be accessed.