Today, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled against our efforts to compel the University of North Carolina to disclose roughly 50,000 pages of documents, mostly of Prof. Ralph Baric, mostly about his work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, possibly containing clues about the origins of COVID-19.
Even though the NC Court of Appeals agreed that the NC Public Records Act “is intended to be liberally construed” and “exemptions must be construed narrowly,” it held in support of a broad reading of the university research exemption, and against our efforts to make these documents public.
We are disappointed in today’s result. We believe that the public has a right to know where the Covid pandemic may have come from. We believe that the University of North Carolina, as an institution of higher learning, should help the public understand the lessons of the pandemic, and not obscure or bury them.
We are evaluating our legal options and potential next steps. #FOIA
A North Carolina court’s decision to shield UNC virus research under public records exemptions exposes deep transparency gaps and strengthens calls for a constitutional Sunshine Amendment.