Open records stonewalling does not need a denial. Joshua Levin, a student journalist writing for the Student Press Law Center, spent a year trying to get records from UMass Boston for a campus newspaper investigation and got missed deadlines, disputed exemptions and fee estimates above $1,000 instead. “They don’t have to always say no,” he writes. “They can simply make getting the records so difficult that nobody wants to try.”
The column is about Massachusetts, where Levin says the appeal process mostly produces revised responses and month-long delays. He also points to falling federal FOIA release rates and to schools using FERPA to withhold routine records that courts have said it does not cover.
Read the full story: Levin: The open records stonewalling is working — Student Press Law Center, October 18, 2026.
How New York’s law works and what to do when a request stalls: Freedom of Information Law.
