Brick Wall Award Recipients – 2001-Present

Started in 2001, this dubious distinction is presented to the individual or organization that, according to chapter members, did the most to block citizen access to public records and proceedings or otherwise violated the spirit of the First Amendment during the past year. Anyone is eligible, but special consideration will be given to public officials and tax-funded agencies that fail to follow the law.

2026 – The Ohio State University, for its handling of questions and events surrounding Richard Strauss, Les Wexner and the departure and replacement of former president Ted Carter.

2025 – The Ohio Legislature, for its 2024 enactment of a lame duck law enabling police agencies to dramatically increase the cost of obtaining video public records.

2024 – The Columbus Police Department, for using the amendment to the Ohio Constitution known as Marsy’s Law, which aims to enhance victims’ rights, to deny public records requests related to officer-involved incidents.

2023 – Ohio National Guard Adjutant General John C. Harris Jr., Ohio State Highway Patrol, East Palestine Police Dept., Columbiana County Sheriff’s Office for detaining and arresting a reporter at a press conference.

2022 – The Ohio Redistricting Commission,  for violating the spirit of the First Amendment for many attempts to flout the public’s right to know about the legislative and congressional map-making process.

2021 – FirstEnergy Corp., for its role at the center of a $61 million bribery scheme that has ensnared several prominent Ohio politicians.

2020 – No ceremony due to COVID-19

2019 – The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), for inflation of enrollment data and overcharging the state for taxpayer money.

2018 – The Columbus Board of Education, for its secrecy in conducting a search for a new superintendent in 2017-18, abandoned when decisions made in closed meetings in violation of Ohio Open Meetings law came to light in spring 2018.

2017 – The Ohio State University, for its obstruction and delays in responding to public records requests, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch; U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, each for avoiding attendance at local public meetings during the proposed repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, in early 2017.

2016 – The faculty of Ohio Wesleyan University, who voted 48-21 on April 18, 2016, to ban journalists from covering their faculty meetings. The meetings long were open and covered by local media and the student press at OWU.

2015 – Ohio Rep. Jim Buchy, (R-Greenville), primary sponsor of House Bill 663, called “Ohio’s Secret Execution Bill”

2014 – Columbus City Schools, for its attempt to shield the press and public from its data-scrubbing scandal and its use of “policy governance” to keep staff and board members from speaking freely to the press and public

2013 – JobsOhio, which has been a challenge for reporters and a target for critics who feel it’s the black hole of state government, with state money going toward it without public knowledge or real transparency

2012 – No award

2011 – No award

2010 – Ohio University, which failed to open meetings of its Budget Planning Council — which recommends how to spend tax and tuition dollars — despite an ongoing campaign by The Post, the campus’ independent student newspaper

2009 – Olentangy Local Schools Board of Education

2008 – Ohio Department of Education

2007 – Ohio Supreme Court justices Paul Pfeifer, Judith Ann Lanzinger, Terrence O’Donnell, Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Alice Robie Resnick

2006 – The Ohio Supreme Court, for a series of decisions which weakened Ohio’s Open Records law. Particularly onerous was the court’s decision to recognize “executive privilege” for the Ohio governor’s office in Dann v. Taft. This exception is not in the state’s Open Records statutes or the Ohio Constitution. In other record-shielding decisions, the court has blocked newspaper access to photographs of police officers and to the home addresses of state employees — both longstanding public documents.

2005 – Sen. Larry Mumper, R-Marion, for sponsoring the “Academic Bill of Rights” to limit what professors can say in the classroom; Jacqueline Piar, superintendent of Northridge Local Schools, for dismissing the high school principal, sending public records out of the county to shield them from view and asking the Licking County sheriff to drop a criminal investigation.

2004 – Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Robert S. Tongren, for destroying a $579,000 consultants’ report to hide it from public scrutiny.

2003 – Village of New Rome, for refusing to provide documents showing how money was spent or how some officials came to occupy their offices.

2002 – The Ohio Historical Society, for refusing to follow Ohio laws regarding open meetings or public records, even though it received 75 percent of its annual funding from taxpayers, and keeping executive salaries secret.

2001 – Judge Thomas E. Louden of Delaware County Juvenile Court, who was sued by The Columbus Dispatch when he improperly closed a detention hearing and posted deputy sheriffs at the doors of the Delaware County Courthouse to keep the media out of the building.