MIDLAND, MICH. — The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation was awarded $6,000 in attorney’s fees for its lawsuit against Wayne State University. The lawsuit, filed in June 2018, was launched on behalf of Virginia Tech professor, Dr. Marc Edwards, in response to Wayne State deliberately ignoring multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.

The first of the FOIA requests, which were filed in an effort to provide additional transparency on the Flint water crisis, were submitted to the university by Dr. Edwards in May 2017. These requests inquired about information associated with the university’s research effort and allegations of conflicts between Wayne State employees and the state of Michigan.

"The Mackinac legal team forced Wayne State University to release public documents that were being wrongfully withheld, which shed light on allegations that high-ranking state employees were obstructing justice by interfering with Flint water crisis research at WSU in 2016-2017,” said Dr. Edwards.

This lawsuit forced Wayne State University to produce thousands of pages of public documents that were previously withheld. The court then ordered the university to pay nearly $6,000 in attorney’s fees to the Mackinac Center.

“Having an open and transparent government is an essential right,” said Derk Wilcox, senior attorney with the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation. “This case shows that government institutions, including our public universities, aren’t above the law and cannot stand in the way of complete transparency.” The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation prevailed previously in a FOIA lawsuit against the University of Michigan.

Learn more about the case here.