A national sports journalist is suing West Point and a separate athletics organization for records that would shed light on their sports programs.
Daniel Libit accused the United States Military Academy and the Army West Point Athletic Association of violating the federal Freedom of Information Act, in a complaint filed Feb. 1 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, for allegedly denying access to public records.
West Point has taken the position that the records are not subject to disclosure because they belong to the athletic association, according to the complaint. The association claims that it is not subject to the public records law because it is a private nonprofit organization.
“This two-step machination to declare whole categories of the federal military institution’s records off-limits to public view violates FOIA (Freedom of Information Act.),” Libit claims.
West Point and athletic association officials did not reply to an email requesting their sides of the dispute.
Libit writes for Sportico, an online news service, and he is the founder and co-editor of The Intercollegiate, a college sports news organization that says it covers “the issues that truly matter.”
He is trying to understand relationships between the service academies and intercollegiate sports, according to the complaint, and is seeking records such as coaches’ salaries and merchandising and multimedia contracts.
Over the past twelve months he has submitted several FOIA requests to the academy and athletic association and has been denied each time.
He traces the logjam back to 2010 when Congress enacted legislation that allows the service academies to outsource their athletics programs to nonprofit corporations. The idea was to enable the academies to increase their fundraising so as to keep pace with other major college sports programs.
In 2015, three West Point alumni created the Army West Point Athletic Association.
Congress, according to the complaint, set strict federal oversight on the association as a condition of allowing the association to run West Point athletics.
John M. McHugh, a former Secretary of the Army and a former congressman who co-sponsored the legislation has stated, according to the complaint, that the arrangement was not intended to shield information from the public.
By early 2017 the association had received approval for tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service, and West Point granted it control of the athletics programs.
West Point had required the association to place the academy’s commandant, dean, and director of admissions on its board. The academy selected a new athletic director who was simultaneously made president and CEO of the association. Most of the academy’s athletic department employees, as well as various support services and equipment, were transferred to the association.
The Secretary of the Army retained the right to review the association’s finances, the complaint states.
For two years, the athletic association filed annual IRS tax forms that are public records and that reveal financial information and activities. But in 2018, according to the complaint, the association petitioned the IRS to be exempted from filing the tax form on the grounds that it is a government unit or an affiliate of a government unit.
But when Libit submitted FOIA requests to the Army West Point Athletic Association, he says, an official responded that it is a private company and a non-federal entity that is not subject to the public records law.
When Libit submitted FOIA requests, the West Point public records officer claimed that the military academy no longer has purview over athletic records and referred the journalist to the nonprofit athletic association.
Libit argues that the athletic association is controlled by and enmeshed within the military academy.
He is asking the court to declare that both entities are agencies subject to the public records law and to order them to disclose records unless they are specifically exempted by law.
Libit is represented by Yale Law School’s Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic.
