Unexpected candor and contrition from the University of Kentucky in responding to an open records request submitted by a conservative student group, Young Americans for Freedom.

YAF, which registered as a student organization at UK in 2018, encountered delays in re-registering this year, prompting the national YAF's "Censorship Exposed" project to request communications about the group exchanged by UK officials.

The communications were disclosed to YAF, along with an apology from the university and reassurances that staff have been reminded of the "importance of using appropriate language that does not inadvertently create any misperceptions regarding the work we are doing."

In an August 16 editorial in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Linda Blackford highlights the most offensive of the communications, "Oh Jesus tap dancing Christ," and the mirthful responses it received.

Nearly as offensive is an official's jocose observation that the YAF is "going to be mad they waited forever and I declined them whoops."

Campus Reform, identified as an "American conservative news website focused on higher education," quotes several other derisive statements made by UK officials, mocking the group's mission and its members' grammar, among other things.

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13608

All in all, an embarrassing insight into elitism at its worst.

Any experienced public official or employee lives by one simple rule: Never put in writing today what you don't want to appear in the headlines tomorrow.

Apparently, UK's officials didn't learn this rule. Whoops!

But here, in a rare moment of clarity, UK apologized for its officials' poor judgment and recognized that "free and open examination of public records is in the public's interest. . . even though such examination may cause inconvenience or embarrassment to public officials or others."