Last updated March 23, 2025
This week, we all celebrate and shine a light on the importance of public records and open government. Transparency is critical to understanding how our public institutions function, and student journalists are often the only ones in their community regularly holding school and college administrators accountable.
We hope you’ll join us for an informative webinar on a topic we hear about frequently on our Legal Hotline:
Piercing the Wall: How to report on sexual abuse in schools
Learn how to uncover serious educator misconduct inside often insular academic institutions. From finding sources, obtaining documents, earning trust, interviewing trauma survivors, unlocking key stakeholders and holding educators and administrators accountable, award-winning reporter Matt Drange will walk through how he pieced together, “The predators’ playground: Unraveling 40 years of sexual misconduct at a single California high school.” While SPLC receives a lot of questions from students covering sexual misconduct, many of the lessons can be applied to a variety of subjects where the focus of your reporting is behavior that is kept secret by design.
FOI Award application is now open
We’re now accepting nominations for the Student Freedom of Information Awards, which recognize a student journalist or team of journalists each year for outstanding and tenacious use of public records in their reporting. The awards, sponsored by the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida, come with a $1,000 prize for the high school level and a $2,000 prize for the college level.
Nominations for the 2025 awards should be based on reporting that was published between June 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. Eastern on June 30, 2025. Learn more and apply here.
Winning a records lawsuit against your alma mater
For Sunshine Week, three former Western Washington University student journalists — Erasmus Baxter, Asia Fields and Julia Furukawa— reflected on recently winning their multi-year battle for sexual misconduct records from their alma mater, and how important SPLC was to their effort. Now they’re using the settlement to support future investigative student journalism.
Public records resources
Here are some other helpful resources for Sunshine Week:
- SPLC’s popular public records letter generator
- “FOI Fun” Kahoot game
- Freedom of information FAQs
- Access to high school public records (with story ideas!)
- Ready-to-go FOI presentation for the classroom
- Topical guides, including on athletics, university foundations, mental illness and more
- And, of course, if you have questions, contact our free Legal Hotline to speak with an attorney
About Sunshine Week
Sunshine Week, March 16-22, is our opportunity as individuals and people who work for journalism, civic and education institutions to engage the public about how public records and open government are integral to democracy. Free resources include:
- Sunshine Week graphics
- Content for publication, including guest columns, cartoons and word puzzles
- Tips and templates to file freedom of information requests, and avoiding pitfalls
- Sample social media posts with suggested tags, including #SunshineWeek
The festivities are coordinated by the Brechner Freedom of Information Project, and the Student Press Law Center is proud to be one of many partners highlighting the need for greater transparency.
To mark the 20th anniversary of Sunshine Week and explore solutions, the first-ever Sunshine Fest will take place March 20 in Washington, D.C. Several sessions will be live-streamed on this YouTube channel.