University of Georgia 4/29 Protests (Office of the Governor of Georgia)
Multi Request | University of Georgia 4/29 Protests |
Submitted | May 13, 2024 |
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Communications
From: Josh Lingsch
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Georgia Open Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
1. Any communications, including SMS text messages, microsoft teams messages, slack messages, groupme messages, e-mails, g-chat messages, signal messages, telegram messages, WhatsApp messages, Facebook messenger messages, sent or received by the following individuals on from April 1, 2024, to the current date, which concerns or mentions "Israel", "Palestine", "anti-semitism", "antisemitism", "anti-semitic", "antisemitic", or "IHRA,” Protest," "Columbia," "Palestine," "Gaza," "Israel," "Hamas," "Agitators."
a. Jere Morehead, President
b. S. Jack Hu, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
c. Michelle G. Cook, Vice President for Student Affairs
d. P. Daniel Silk, Associate Vice President for Public Safety
e. Jeff Clark, Chief of UGA Police
f. Rebecca Scarboro, Director for the Office of Student Conduct
h. Brett Malone, Associate Dean of Students
2. Any communications (including SMS text messages, microsoft teams messages, slack messages, groupme messages, e-mails, g-chat messages, signal messages, telegram messages, WhatsApp messages, Facebook messenger messages) to or from Jere Morehead, any person employed by the Office of the President, or any person employed by the State of Georgia Government, on the one hand, and any elected official (including Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, any member of the Georgia legislature, or any Member of Congress) or any member of the staff (such as aides, secretaries, or assistants) of an elected official, on the other hand, between April 1, 2024 to Current date, inclusive.
3. Any communications (including SMS text messages, microsoft teams messages, slack messages, groupme messages, e-mails, g-chat messages, signal messages, telegram messages, WhatsApp messages, Facebook messenger messages) to or from Jere Morehead, any person employed by the Office of the President, or any person employed by the State of Georgia Government, on the one hand, and any elected official (including Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, any member of the Georgia legislature, or any Member of Congress) or any member of the staff (such as aides, secretaries, or assistants) of an elected official, on the other hand, between April 1, 2024 to Current date, inclusive. which concerns or mentions "Israel", "Palestine", "anti-semitism", "antisemitism", "anti-semitic", "antisemitic", or "IHRA,” Protest," "Columbia," "Palestine," "Gaza," "Israel," "Hamas," "Agitators."
4.
Please also note that this request seeks public records wherever they may be found, including on devices or networks owned or operated by private parties. For example, if an employee uses a personal cell phone or social media account to conduct public business, records created, maintained, or held on the phone or account are public records subject to this request.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 3 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Josh Lingsch
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Georgia Open Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 14, 2024. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Office of the Governor of Georgia
Josh -
We have received your open records request. It appears that this request may have been intended for President Morehead's office. We are not the records custodian for that office, and will only have responsive records to the extent that such records were sent to or from the Office of the Governor.
Nevertheless, to the extent we have responsive records, we will endeavor to respond to your request. I have broken out our responses/requests for clarification below, corresponding to the separate items in your request:
1.
We do not have records responsive to this request.
2.
Please clarify the scope of this request. First, there are no search terms or keywords identified for this request. Second, the request includes "communications...to or from...any person employed by the State of Georgia Government, on the one hand, and any elected official...or any member of the staff of an elected official, on the other hand." Interpreted literally and applied to the Office of the Governor, this would essentially cover every email sent to or from our office to any state employee, regardless of subject or keywords. This is likely to return thousands of documents and incur significant costs. Please confirm whether this is the intended scope of your request.
3.
Please clarify the scope of this request. Similar to part (2), this request includes "communications...to or from...any person employed by the State of Georgia Government, on the one hand, and any elected official...or any member of the staff of an elected official, on the other hand." With the inclusion of the specified keywords, there are likely to be somewhat fewer responsive documents, but I am not sure whether this is the intended scope.
*
To the extent that this request was intended to cover only communications between employees of or persons associated with the University of Georgia, on the one hand, and the Office of the Governor, on the other, the responsive records would be identical to those provided to you on May 8th (attached).
4.
5.
There is no request following "4" below.
Please let me know how you would like us to interpret this request, and if you wish, provide any additional clarification to your request. We can then provide you an estimate of the response time or the fees, if any.
Sincerely,
Sam Hatcher
Deputy Executive Counsel
Office of Governor Brian P. Kemp
sam.hatcher@georgia.gov |(404) 971-0097
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From: Josh Lingsch
Thank you for your response.
Regarding your response to number 2, please disregard that specific request.
Regarding number 3, I would like the request to cover the scope as outlined including the specified keywords. I am specifically looking for communications between any employee with the Office of the Governor and any individual employed at the University of Georgia (specifically the office of Jere Morehead, but also can include any other University of Georgia employee). However, I believe the scope you outlined would be able to capture what I am looking for. I would also like to include the search terms "Old College," "North Campus," "UGA," and "University of Georgia" in addition to the ones I initially requested.
Thanks,
Josh Lingsch
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Georgia Open Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 14, 2024. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Georgia Open Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 14, 2024. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Office of the Governor of Georgia
Josh,
Please see attached for the records responsive to this request.
Thanks,
Sam Hatcher
Deputy Executive Counsel
Office of Governor Brian P. Kemp
sam.hatcher@georgia.gov |(404) 971-0097
From: Josh Lingsch
Hi Sam - thank you for the response. I wanted to respond to challenge the adequacy of the search. It seems odd to me that there are pretty regular emails from UGA which end abruptly at April 16. Were there any additional records which were not included in error? A previous request yielded this document, which would demonstrate that there are more records responsive to my request. Please advise.
Thanks,
Josh Lingsch
From: Office of the Governor of Georgia
Josh,
Please find attached records responsive to your request.
I believe there was an error compressing the data file into a PDF while originally preparing the responsive records. I apologize for this inconvenience.
Thank you,
Evan Frey
Open Records Officer
Office of Governor Brian Kemp
evan.frey@georgia.gov<mailto:evan.frey@georgia.gov>
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