California State University at Stanislaus and its private foundation violated public records laws and will have to release the speakers contract with Sarah Palin they had tried to keep secret, a judge has ruled.The details of Palin's contract to speak at a June 25 fundraiser for the foundation became national news last spring after foundation officials refused to tell state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, how much Palin would be paid.
Yee has been trying to change a state law that shields campus foundations from public scrutiny.
The Palin story grew more bizarre in April after students found discarded pieces of the secret contract in a Dumpster on the property of the public university - after university officials told Yee and CalAware, an open-government group, that they didn't have any of Palin-related documents.
CalAware sued, and in May, the foundation released hundreds of pages of Palin-related paperwork - but not the contract. Among them were e-mails showing that Charles Reed, chancellor of the 23-campus CSU system, favored suppressing the contract to avoid news stories about its contents.
That e-mail, and the finding that the university did possess Palin documents, led Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Roger Beauchesne to order the Turlock campus to release Palin's contract
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