WBIR journalists (L-R) Robyn Wilhoit, John Becker, Corey Presley and John North outside the Knox County Chancery courtroom during a break in the May 2024 hearing in the station’s public records case against the University of Tennessee.
After a public records lawsuit by Knoxville TV station WBIR, the University of Tennessee has turned over unredacted copies of operating agreements and other documents about its partnership in a company that runs Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The university also paid $60,000 to cover WBIR’s attorneys’ fees and litigation costs as part of a settlement.
Longtime WBIR journalist John Becker filed a public records lawsuit in March 2024 after the university denied access to records about UT Battelle LLC. It took years to get the records and finally settle the case. The University of Tennessee signed the settlement on Jan. 23, 2025.
Becker filed his public records request in August 2022, but the university took until March 2023 before responding with a denial of many of the records. Knox County Chancellor John Weaver questioned the delay during the court hearing. In the denial, the university listed several laws that it claimed made many of the records confidential. It released some records.
On eve of hearing, university drops most objections
Paul McAdoo and Gunita Singh represented WBIR. McAdoo is an attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Local Legal Initiative, which has lawyers in five states that provide legal services to journalists to pursue news stories. Singh also works for the Reporters Committee.
The University of Tennessee owns 50% of UT-Battelle. Battelle Memorial Institute owns the other 50%. Through a contract with the Department of Energy, which is posted on UT-Battelle’s website, UT-Battelle manages and operates Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Oak Ridge National Laboratory conducts research for energy and national security applications.
On the night before the court hearing in the case in May 2024, the university announced it was dropping most of its objections and releasing almost all of the remaining records except for information it redacted in the operating agreements between the university and Battelle Memorial Institute. The redacted information was confidential, the university claimed, under the Federal Procurement Integrity Act and trade secrets law.
The Federal Procurement Integrity Act states that “a person shall not knowingly obtain contractor bid or proposal information or source selection information before the award of a Federal agency procurement contract to which the information relates.” The Reporters Committee attorneys argued that the exemption did not apply factually to the operating agreement between the university and Battelle Memorial Institute, nor did it act as an exemption under the Tennessee Public Records Act to records held by the University of Tennessee.
University claimed ‘trade secrets’ with little explanation
The Reporters Committee attorneys also argued that the university was using an overbroad interpretation of trade secret laws. They showed how the university initially used the trade secrets claim to withhold nearly 100 lines of text. For example, it had redacted text that explained that some proportion of UT-Battelle’s board members are appointed by UT (50%), and some proportion was appointed by Battelle Memorial (also 50%). It also initially redacted a sentence that said UT-Battelle’s board members would bring “relevant scientific, educational, and research experience and resources to bear for the benefit of the company.”
While WBIR did not contest that the trade secrets law can be an exemption to the Tennessee public records law, they argued that the university had to establish that the redacted material did, in fact, contain trade secrets as defined by state law. The main factors considered by a court to determine whether something is a trade secret are:
(1) the extent to which the information is known outside of the business;
(2) the extent to which it is known by employees and others involved in the business;
(3) the extent of measures taken by the business to guard the secrecy of the information;
(4) the value of the information to the business and to its competitors;
(5) the amount of money or effort expended by the business in developing the information;
(6) the ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired or duplicated by others[.]
During the hearing, Chancellor Weaver pressed the university’s lawyer on how and why it applied the trade secrets law and why it was continuing to apply it to the remaining redactions. Weaver also questioned how the federal procurement law applied to the documents requested.
Surprising many in the courtroom, Weaver noted that the university did not respond to WBIR’s records request as required by the Tennessee Public Records Act. The public records law, he pointed out, requires a government entity to respond within seven business days by either:
- providing the records
- denying the request in writing, giving the basis for the denial; or
- Furnishing the requester in writing the time reasonably necessary to produce the record or information.
Weaver said that the university waited until March 2023 to deny records in the request and give the basis for the denial, which the statute says is required to take place within seven business days.
(See Reporters Committee information about the lawsuit, with links to court documents, and WBIR’s story about the case.)
