The University of Michigan, often simply referred to as "Michigan," is a public research university in Ann Arbor. | Wikimedia Commons
The University of Michigan, often simply referred to as "Michigan," is a public research university in Ann Arbor. | Wikimedia Commons
The University of Michigan appears to be violating the state’s open records laws when it comes to requests for information about the "science and data" that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has used to form the state's COVID-19 policy, according to Michigan Capitol Confidential.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy filed a lawsuit against the university following the governor’s refusal to explain or prove where she was getting the scientific information that she has continued to refer to during the course of the pandemic.
In December, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was submitted to the University of Michigan officials from whom Whitmer was receiving scientific information. The request was made to directly to the university, as a governor is exempt from the FOIA law in Michigan, whereas an educational institution is not.
On May 13, the Mackinac Center requested any correspondence between several specific university officials and anyone who had a state government email address. On May 27, a second request was filed, requesting the same correspondence and including information about the Michigan Safe Start Plan.
The university used the “frank communications” exemption to avoid sharing a number of documents and redacted a great deal of information from the documents it did share.
The Mackinac Center disagrees about this being an appropriate use of the "frank communications" exemption.
University of Michigan Spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said in an email that he was shocked at the lawsuit that the Mackinac Center had filed, claiming that the minimal redacting of documents the university provided was done so to protect email addresses of individuals. “The university will vigorously defend the integrity of our FOIA process in the court of claims,” Fitzgerald wrote, according to Michigan Capitol Confidential.
The Mackinac Center has been here before: It sued the University of Michigan in 2017 over some emails sent by university President Mark Schlissel. In that lawsuit, the university had to release the seven emails requested because they did not meet the "frank communications" threshold.
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