Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/author/katehoward/)
Kate Howard is a veteran investigative reporter specializing in government accountability and higher education issues. She worked at The Tennessean, the Florida Times-Union and the Omaha World-Herald before coming to Kentucky.
The judge said he’s concerned about “a lax culture” of tolerating sexual harassment across state government — and that employees with multiple unsubstantiated complaints against them could escape scrutiny if the court allowed them anonymity.
Though black youth are less than 27 percent of Louisville’s youth population, they represented more than 75 percent of the youth bookings in Louisville’s secure detention center last year.
When a youth is accused of a crime in Kentucky, an adult has to make a choice in nearly every step that follows.
Allow the youth to avoid a formal charge, or bring the case to a judge? Send him home or to sleep in a cell? Put another way: Offer another chance, or deny it?
Disproportionately, the Kentucky youth denied that second chance are black.
A New York City federal judge ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump should no longer block people on social media. What does that mean for a similar case against Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin?
The Kentucky Labor Cabinet has filed suit against the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting to prevent releasing details about employees accused of sexual harassment — the second state agency to sue KyCIR in the last month.
“Kentuckians should have access to records kept by their government, and the law makes clear these records should be public,” said Louisville Public Media Interim President Stephen George in a written statement. “We’ll keep fighting for transparency and the people’s right to know.”
The Kentucky Labor Cabinet refused to release the name of an employee who was accused in 2016, saying that the employee’s privacy outweighed the public interest.
Employees have lodged 33 formal complaints of sexual harassment or assault since 2012. Most complaints ranged from inappropriate verbal comments and text messages to unwanted touching. (This story includes a description of sexual assault.)
Every public agency has to follow the same state laws about sharing records with the public. But every public agency does not interpret these laws the same way when it comes to sharing complaints of sexual harassment.
Kentucky’s angel investor tax incentive program is among the nation’s most generous. But the state refuses to release most public records about the investors or the businesses, citing their privacy and fear that they’d release “proprietary” information that would damage the businesses.