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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/InVodkaVeritas on 2024-04-24 14:31:50.

On December 21st the ACC filed their lawsuit against FSU in a race to the courthouse. The issue is that in order to file a lawsuit against an ACC member, the ACC needs a 2/3 vote from all members (at least 10) in order to authorize this. They did not do this before filing their lawsuit.

When FSU filed a motion to dismiss on these grounds, the ACC gathered their members and held a vote for retroactive approval on January 12th, getting their 2/3 approval for suing FSU. The NC judge accepted this ratification of the decision to sue and denied the motion to dismiss.

Since then, a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times named Matt Baker has been trying to figure out which schools voted to sue FSU by making Public Records Requests for the minutes from the meeting where they voted on January 12th.

Quoting Danielle Kelley, an FSU booster following this closely:

This January 12 meeting that the ACC said they finally got the 2/3 vote of members to sue FSU and the Judge in NC found that was sufficient to go back and vote after filing a lawsuit in December (when the actually vote should have happened regardless according to the bylaws), has no minutes? A star journalist in Tampa is sending out public record requests to find this information. Louisville is like we got nothing. Clemson has already stated in their lawsuit they don’t either on this vote. Judge Cooper in Tallahassee even asked about these minutes at the last hearing.

The trouble is, Matt Baker has been coming up empty:

According to Baker, the ACC claimed the minutes were emailed out to all current and joining members as is required by ACC bylaws after a meeting. However, something interesting is coming back: the minutes were seemingly not sent to anyone.

  • Cal (who should have received them despite being a future member) has responded to Baker’s legal request by saying they checked all the materials the ACC sent them and they were not sent the minutes.
  • Louisville and Clemson denied voting to sue FSU to Baker and say they also were not sent the minutes.
  • FSU told the judge they were not included in the vote and were not sent the minutes.
  • All other schools have yet to respond to Baker’s public records requests

This is extremely odd. The ACC claims the minutes were sent to all ACC members, yet multiple schools don’t have them. The Cal situation is especially odd because they confirmed that they got the update email from the ACC but then said there were no minutes contained within the update… which would indicate that the vote never happened? I severely doubt the lawyers for the ACC would straight up lie about holding a vote to the court. Which means they were deliberately left out (violating ACC bylaws)?

So we are left with a bit of a mystery: where are the minutes? Why were they not sent out to members as the ACC claimed they were? Why is it so hard for a reporter, making legal claims from public universities, to find the results of the vote?

If the ACC held the vote (and I cannot imagine they didn’t and then lied about it in court) then by the ACC bylaws all members are entitled to know the full results of what was said at the meeting. The minutes. Cal, Stanford, and SMU as future members are also entitled to know what was said. If a public university receives a legal public records request from a journalist they must comply under their various state laws. It’s why Bill Farley was able to get Cal’s agreements with the ACC in the first place: state law compels them to promptly comply with the request with no undue delay. Matt Baker has responses from 3 schools: Clemson, Louisville, and Cal who all should have the minutes but… don’t. And FSU said in court that they don’t.

So we still don’t know which schools actually voted to sue FSU because there’s some sort of shenanigans going on to keep the minutes out of the hands of the public.