OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) A student journalist is suing Johnson County Community College over the price it charged for public documents.
Twenty-one-year-old Marcus Clem of Stilwell says in the lawsuit that the college was trying to stall release of emails by charging the student newspaper $47,426 for seven months of emails.
The Kansas City Star reports that the emails involve a former college employee who was fired and the employee’s supervisor.
After the newspaper, The Campus Ledger, reduced the request to 20 emails, the college said it would cost nearly $10,000.
College executive Joe Sopcich says the college was not trying to block publication of the emails. But he says the request was so broad in scope that it would have required a significant amount of time and expense to fulfill.
