A North Carolina appeals court handed the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a significant legal victory on Wednesday, ruling that the university is entitled to withhold thousands of pages of research data related to the origins of COVID-19.
The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel effectively blocks US Right to Know, a public health investigative group, from accessing roughly 5,200 specific documents involving the work of Dr. Ralph Baric, a prominent epidemiologist, and his past associations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The ruling brings a temporary close to a legal tug-of-war that began in July 2020. US Right to Know filed eight public records requests seeking internal communications and data spanning from 2009 to 2021, hoping to shed light on research that might explain the emergence of the virus. While UNC produced over 130,000 pages of responsive documents, they held back a specific cache of records, citing exemptions under state law.
The case, US Right to Know v. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, ultimately hinged not on virology or public health policy, but on a strict lesson in grammar and statutory interpretation.
At the heart of the dispute was the phrasing of North Carolina General Statute § 116-43.17, which exempts certain academic materials from the Public Records Act. The law protects: “Research data, records, or information of a proprietary nature.”
Attorneys for US Right to Know argued that the phrase “of a proprietary nature” was meant to modify all three items in the list. Under their interpretation, research data and records would only be exempt from the public if they contained proprietary secrets.
UNC disagreed, arguing that “of a proprietary nature” only modified the word it immediately followed: “information.” Under the university’s reading, “research data” and “research records” are automatically exempt from public release, regardless of whether they are proprietary.
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Writing for the Court of Appeals, Judge Jefferson Griffin sided with the university.
Applying a legal principle known as the “doctrine of the last antecedent,” Griffin wrote that qualifying phrases usually only apply to the words immediately preceding them. Because “information of a proprietary nature” is separated from the rest of the list by commas, the court found that the legislature intended to treat “data” and “records” as separate, protected categories.
“The context… does not clearly suggest that this reference is intended to apply to anything other than the immediately preceding expression,” Griffin wrote in the Jan. 7 opinion.
The court also rejected the investigative group’s attempt to narrow the definition of “proprietary.” US Right to Know argued the term should be treated similarly to “trade secrets,” which requires a strict burden of proof regarding economic value and secrecy efforts.
The court declined that standard, instead ruling that “proprietary” should be defined broadly to mean any information in which the owner has a “protectable interest.”
The judgment affirms a previous October 2024 ruling by Judge Alyson Adams Grine in Orange County Superior Court. Consequently, the 5,205 withheld documents—which the university argues are protected research data and records—will remain out of the public eye.
Judges Chris Dillon and Michael Flood concurred with the opinion. US Right to Know has not yet stated if they plan to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
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