The Richmond School Board improperly redacted documents related to an investigation into alleged misconduct by a school division employee, a Richmond Circuit Court judge ruled Wednesday.

The documents are related to the departure earlier this year of Ronald “Bobby” Hathaway, the former director of facilities and custodial services for Richmond Public Schools. The school division conducted an investigation into Hathaway before he left the role, but kept most details of the investigation secret by heavily redacting documents before releasing them in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

“Disclosure of these documents is exactly the degree of sunshine FOIA contemplates in a free and open form of governance,” Judge Tracy Thorne-Begland wrote in his decision.

Richmonder reporter Victoria A. Ifatusin sued in an effort to make the information available to readers and the general public, objecting to the redactions as overly broad. She was represented by attorney Andrew T. Bodoh.

The School Board contended the redactions were permitted under Virginia’s FOIA statute, which allows “personnel information” to be withheld. 

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The judge ordered the School Board to release unredacted copies of the documents to Ifatusin and pay The Richmonder’s attorney fees.

“The documents in question do not contain data, facts or statements that are of a private nature,” Thorne-Begland wrote in his decision. “They contain allegations of malfeasance, discrimination, and favoritism by public employees and the investigative steps and conclusions reached by the board in reviewing the allegations.”

The School Board has the ability to appeal the ruling if it wishes.

Virginia FOIA’s personnel information exemption has long been a point of legal contention, with media outlets arguing local officials use it too widely to conceal information from the public and governments arguing they have a duty to employees to safeguard sensitive details. 

In 2022, the Supreme Court of Virginia handed down a ruling that narrowed the situations in which the personnel exemption can be applied. In Hawkins v. South Hill, the court held “that data, facts, and statements are private if their disclosure would constitute an ‘unwarranted invasion of personal privacy’ to a reasonable person under the circumstances.”

RPS was also sued after refusing to release large portions of an investigation into a June 2023 shooting outside Huguenot High School’s graduation ceremony.

In that case, a judge ordered that the document be released to the public with minimal redactions, a win for news organizations.  

When documents from Wednesday’s ruling are released, Ifatusin and The Richmonder will report on their contents, as well as any steps RPS is taking to recover lost property and prevent similar situations from happening in the future.

The Richmonder is a nonprofit news outlet started in September 2024 to fill the gaps left behind by the decline of legacy news outlets. The outlet is funded by reader donations and distributes a three-times-a-week newsletter in addition to its website.

The lawsuit was funded out of the outlet’s general budget. The Richmonder’s largest single source of funding is the more than 1,300 members who contribute on a monthly or one-time basis.

Contact Michael Phillips at mphillips@richmonder.org.