In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 20‐3504 JACQUELINE STEVENS, Plaintiff‐Appellant, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Defendant‐Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 17 C 2494 — John Z. Lee, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED OCTOBER 1, 2021 — DECIDED DECEMBER 9, 2021 ____________________ Before EASTERBROOK, MANION, and WOOD, Circuit Judges. WOOD, Circuit Judge. Jacqueline Stevens, a Professor of Po‐ litical Science at Northwestern University, is conducting re‐ search into the relations between the foreign campuses of American universities, the federal government, and private‐ sector entities. As part of that research, Professor Stevens sub‐ mitted three Freedom of Information Act requests to the De‐ partment of State. A lawsuit followed, terminating in entry of summary judgment for the Department. On appeal, Professor 2 No. 20‐3504 Stevens contends that summary judgment was improper both because the Department’s searches were inadequate and be‐ cause its withholdings were unwarranted. We are not per‐ suaded by either point, and so we affirm. I The events giving rise to this case began in February 2015, when Professor Stevens filed three FOIA requests with the Department. Request 3180 (the Northwestern request) sought all materials from the Department’s headquarters and the Qa‐ tar U.S. consulate referring to “Northwestern University’s Qatar campus.” Request 3181 (the Campuses request) sought policy and planning materials relating to the establishment of “U.S. university campuses in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, China, and Singapore.” Finally, Request 3575 (the USAID/MEPI request) sought documents sent to or from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and documents produced, received, or maintained by the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) relating to “U.S. Govern‐ ment funds transferred to the Independent Center of Journal‐ ists”; “Northwestern University and its components, includ‐ ing the Medill School of Journalism”; and “the Center of Jour‐ nalism Excellence.” Dissatisfied with the pace and quantity of the Depart‐ ment’s productions, Professor Stevens filed suit in March 2017. Years of negotiations and motions practice followed. Over that time, the Department provided Professor Stevens with 128 complete records and 350 partial records responsive to the Northwestern request, 29 complete records and two partial records responsive to the USAID/MEPI request, and no records responsive to the Campuses request. It also No. 20‐3504 3 withheld 22 records responsive to the Northwestern request and two records responsive to the USAID/MEPI request. In May 2019, the Department moved for summary judg‐ ment. In support of the motion, it submitted a 35‐page decla‐ ration describing its search processes. Eric Stein, the Director of the Department’s Office of Information Programs and Ser‐ vices, prepared the declaration. The Department also submit‐ ted a Vaughn index describing each withheld document and the grounds for withholding it. See Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820, 826–28 (D.C. Cir. 1973). For the most part, the district court granted the summary‐ judgment motion, but it ordered the Department to conduct follow‐up Northwestern searches in the records of two of its subdivisions. …
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