Ann Arbor Times

 The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan for violating the state of MI's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  

In the lawsuit, the foundation alleges that the U of M withheld a significant portion of documents and information relating to research and data surrounding COVID-19- data which would serve to support the state’s lockdown measures.  

When the measures were first announced by Gov. Whitmer in May as a part of the MI Safe Start Plan, many questioned the “science and data” used by Whitmer’s office to justify the measures. Whitmer’s office did not disclose the information to the public. However, a vital distinction must be made-the information Whitmer’s office used was collected by officials at the U of M. Though Whitmer’s office is exempt from releasing their COVID-19 information received from the university (as granted by the FOIA), the U of M is not exempt. It is for this reason that the Mackinac foundation has taken legal action against the school. 

The Mackinac Center first requested COVID-19 data and various email correspondences from the U of M on May 13, and filed a second request on May 27. The university replied with a delivery date of Aug. 20 and an approximate cost of $2294 for the two information requests. After a payment error on part of the university, the documents were eventually sent on Oct. 5. However, the documents were heavily redacted, which the university stated were due to a “frank communications” exemption. 

The Center filed an appeal to this decision, and received additional documents- also heavily redacted. Policy lead for the Center Steve Delie called for transparency, stating “There has understandably been a lot of speculation surrounding the inconsistencies in Gov. Whitmer’s COVID-19 response plans.” He called for public access to the information, also saying “The public deserves to know what data was used as the basis for these decisions that impacted their lives and livelihoods.” The lawsuit is currently ongoing.