ANALYSIS: University public records office says it has an ‘unprecedented backlog,’ and requests have doubled since 2014
The University of Michigan has not produced a syllabus for a class taught by former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the fall of 2024, more than six months after The College Fix made the request.
The public university initially promised a response by Oct. 22 when The Fix first made its request Sept. 30. The Fix asked for Lightfoot’s class syllabus and other documents related to a project for her three-credit graduate level course on public service.
Since then, the university’s Freedom of Information Act Office sent a series of emails repeatedly delaying the request due to an “unprecedented backlog.”
“Due to the large number of requests being processed by the University we are working through an unprecedented backlog of FOIA requests for which deposits have been paid, and we are still working on the response to your request,” an April 11 email to The Fix stated.
“At this time, we anticipate that we will be able to update you regarding the response to your request on or before May 9, 2025,” the office wrote, adding an apology for the “unexpected delay.”
After the initial request, The Fix received an email from the office on Oct. 22 requesting a $50 deposit “due to the amount of time estimated” to fulfill the request.
“We estimate that we will complete the response to your request within 30 business days from the date of receipt of your deposit,” the email stated, clarifying that it is “a nonbinding good faith estimate.”
Since paying the deposit in October, The Fix received five more emails from the office notifying it that the fulfillment had been delayed again.
An expert on open records law told The Fix that these repeated delays “clearly” exceed the timeframes outlined in Michigan law.
“… if you put that request in last fall they should have provided you information by now. At the very least the syllabus,” David Cuillier, director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida, said when contacted about the situation.
A former journalist, Cuillier is considered a leading authority on public records, and has testified before Congress on the issue. He also serves on the Federal FOIA Advisory Committee, which advises the National Archivist, and is the former president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.
Michigan law requires a response to public records requests within five business days, but allows a single 10-day extension under certain circumstances, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
The university has seen a large increase in requests for public records over the past decade. Over that same time period, it has faced growing scrutiny about its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, including the number of staff with DEI-related jobs.
Its FOIA office handled 1,068 requests in 2023, a 14 percent increase from 2022, according to its most recent annual report. In comparison, the university received 555 requests in 2014.
“These included all the record requests for the three campuses and Michigan Medicine,” university spokesperson Kay Jarvis told The Fix. “Of these, 27 percent of all requests were submitted by members of the news media. U-M was able to respond within 15 business days more than 99 percent of the time.”
The office received 1,230 requests in 2024, Jarvis said in an email Tuesday.
Jarvis also noted that “an initial response is not overdue, according to the law, until after 15 business days have passed.”
Neither she nor other media relations staff responded to The Fix‘s question about plans to address the backlog, such as adding more staff.
The Fix’s experience is not unique. Another journalist at The Chronicle of Higher Education recently shared about similar delays with open record requests at the university.
“Last week, I sent an open records request for some pretty basic and targeted records to 20 major public universities across the country. Records have begun to flow in, none with a charge, except for one: @UMich wants $367 and will do their best to get it to me within 60 days,” senior reporter David Jesse wrote on X.
In comparison, he said the University of North Carolina sent him “detailed records, a few days after the request and free of charge.”
“I’ve covered them for more than 15 years and they’ve always been the worst university I’ve dealt with in terms of getting records,” Jesse wrote about the University of Michigan.
Generally, Cuillier at the Brechner Freedom of Information Project told The Fix that FOIA delays are not unusual.
“[A]gencies across the country routinely violate their required legal response times. When looking at the 71 requests submitted to the University of Michigan by MuckRock, the average response time has been 25 days. Not good, but still 65% faster than peer institutions.”
“So, it might be unfair to say they are worse than other agencies, on average, but certainly they are still not doing their job,” he said.
Another reason for the delay could be the amount of time an entity needs to fulfill a request.
“If it’s just the syllabus, it shouldn’t take more than a few days. Easy-peasy,” Cuillier said. “But if you included a request for a lot of emails or other documents, that could take longer.”
The Fix asked the University of Michigan for the syllabus and course descriptions for the classes Lightfoot was teaching, as well as documents and/or emails about the “social impact not-for-profit organizations in Chicago and Michigan” that students in Lightfoot’s class will be working with and the details of these partnerships.
The university did not respond when The Fix contacted it in mid-March, asking if it could expedite the request.
University Regent Sarah Hubbard did respond when contacted about the situation, telling The Fix in an April 21 email that she “asked for follow up” from the FOIA office. However, the office has yet to respond.
As The Fix previously reported, the university paid Lightfoot $60,000 to teach a three-credit graduate course on “public service” with sociology Professor Jeff Morenoff in the fall.
“The course will pair graduate students with social impact not-for-profit organizations in Chicago and Michigan to solve challenges those groups are facing in the delivery of services in their respective communities,” according to the university news release.
Lightfoot said in the release that she recently began one such nonprofit herself to support “neighborhood vibrancy” and help “community based organizations to build the internal infrastructure they need to remain viable for their communities.”
At the time, the university media relations office did not answer The Fix’s inquiries about whether Lightfoot’s nonprofit is one of the organizations that her students would be working with.
Lightfoot herself also has stonewalled journalists. She once came under fire for refusing to grant interviews to white journalists during Black History Month.
Since losing re-election in 2023, she has found refuge in higher education institutions, teaching at Harvard, the University of Chicago, and most recently the University Michigan.
MORE: Research identifies more than 1,100 DEI-related jobs at U. Michigan
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is a visiting professor at the University of Michigan. University of Michigan