UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BUZZFEED INC., Plaintiff, v. Case No. 18-cv-01535 (CRC) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Defendant. OPINION AND ORDER Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex in programs and activities that receive federal funding. See 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). As part of its responsibility to enforce Title IX, the Department of Education, through its Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”), investigates whether covered school districts are adequately responding to sexual assault complaints by students. When OCR completes an investigation, it sends a “resolution letter” to the relevant school or school district documenting its findings. The media outlet BuzzFeed lodged two Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests with the Department of Education for resolution letters sent by OCR to fourteen separate schools or districts across the country. BuzzFeed seeks the documents to assess the agency’s Title IX enforcement efforts. When the Department failed to release the requested letters within statutory deadlines, BuzzFeed sued. The Department then released the letters in redacted form. Both sides now move for summary judgment. The sole issue raised in the motions is the propriety of the Department’s redactions. 1 The agency maintains they are necessary to protect the privacy of 1 The suit originally alleged other FOIA violations, but the Department has produced the three final sets of records that BuzzFeed sought and provided details explaining the lack of responsive documents for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina school district. See Declaration of Karen Mayo-Tall (“Mayo-Tall Decl.”) ECF No. 21-2 ¶ 2; Declaration of Kristine those involved in the investigations. BuzzFeed accepts that some of the redactions are appropriate but complains that others unduly obscure whether OCR is fulfilling its enforcement obligations. At BuzzFeed’s request, the Court has examined the complete, unredacted resolution letters in camera. Based on that review, the Court finds that the agency’s approach to redacting the letters appears to be inconsistent and that the redactions to two of the letters are significantly overbroad. The Court will not fly-speck particular redactions, however. It will instead deny each side’s summary judgment motion without prejudice and remand the requests to the Department for reprocessing in a manner consistent with this ruling. The parties may renew their motions if BuzzFeed believes the re-produced letters are still too-heavily redacted. * * * The Court will dispense with reciting the general legal standards governing FOIA litigation, which the parties well know. The Department invokes FOIA Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to justify its redactions. Exemption 6 covers “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). Exemption 7(C) covers “records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information . . . could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Id. § 552(b)(7)(C). If the Court determines that a privacy interest exists under one of the two exemptions, ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals