ANN ARBOR, MI - The University of Michigan and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy have settled a lawsuit seeking emails sent by university President Mark Schlissel referencing President Donald Trump.

The settlement required that UM release seven additional emails that Mackinac Center reporter Derek Draplin requested through a Freedom of Information Act request. The emails have been published online.

The university previously released four emails in response to the request, but withheld seven, calling them confidential.

UM agreed in the settlement to revise its FOIA practices, hire more staff to fulfill transparency requests, produce an annual compliance report and strive to complete 75 percent of FOIA requests without charging a fee. UM also reimbursed the Mackinac Center for $7,914 in legal fees.

Draplin's request, which sought emails sent by Schlissel referencing Trump between July 1, 2016 and Nov. 16, 2016, came as a result of Schlissel's speech at a post-election vigil on campus in November.

The speech, and the university's response to election results were criticized by some students, many of whom identify as conservatives, in an online petition labeled #NotMyCampus.

While not explicitly critical of Trump, the additional emails do address subject matter related to Schlissel's previous criticism of the president.

"There is now more even more important work for us to do pushing back against the idea that facts don't matter, that science isn't relevant to decision making and that people without white skin don't belong here," reads an email Schlissel sent to former UM President Mary Sue Coleman on Nov. 10, 2016, two days after the presidential election and a day after his remarks at the post-election vigil.

During the vigil, Schlissel drew criticism for saying "Ninety percent of you rejected the kind of hate and the fractiousness and the longing for some sort of idealized version of a nonexistent yesterday," in comments published by The Michigan Daily.

Another email Schlissel sent regarding a draft of his August 2016 convocation speech to university executives acknowledged the potential risk of the speech being interpreted as "anti-Trump," while not explicitly stating so.

"I realize that some may interpret this as anti-Trump although there is nothing explicit in the remarks," Schlissel's email reads.

"That's just the way it will have to be. I would feel awful if Trump won the election and I was too afraid of appearing political to make any effort to encourage our students to thoughtfully participate. I'm willing to accept the criticism since I think (it's) very important."

Schlissel addressed some of the complaints he received from the speech from "our minority of Trump supporters" in an email from Nov. 11 who felt "marginalized and ostracized in our campus milleu and post election activity."

"Ironic," Schlissel wrote.

In response to receiving the additional emails outlining some of Schlissel's positions, Mackinac Center Legal Foundation Director Patrick J. Wright said he believes the correspondences reveal some of the decision-making processes behind the president's remarks at the campus vigil on Nov. 9 and beyond.

"Obviously it's a public institution and even public institutions are allowed to have some take into partisan matters," Wright said.

"When the university, given the amount of funding it receives - $300 million in state dollars and around $1 billion in federal - tries to get involved in partisan matters, there is some risk involved. We were kind of interested in the decision making process that went into President Schlissel's statement on Nov. 9."

UM Spokesman Rick Fitzgerald referred to a joint statement issued by the university and the Mackinac Center in response to a request for comment, but did not have anything else to add.

"The University denies any wrongdoing and states that in January of 2017, while in the course of processing the request at issue, the University of Michigan received and logged the highest number of FOIA requests ever in a single month in the University's history," the joint statement reads. "The response period also included personnel absences in the University's FOIA office due to illness, the University's December break, and nine business days between the final invoice and payment by the Mackinac Center. Regardless, this matter has highlighted

opportunities for improving the University's FOIA process."

After filing the original FOIA request on Nov. 16, The Mackinac Center claimed Draplin had not received the records in question, even though the Center's payments for the documents were cashed by the university on Feb. 22.

UM sent the Mackinac Center the materials the reporter requested on Feb. 27, just a few days after receiving payment.

A joint settlement statement in the lawsuit said UM estimated it would take 2 3/4 hours of work to fulfill the initial request, but that the initial four emails were provided 46 business days after the Mackinac Center paid the fee deposit for processing of its FOIA request.

The Mackinac received those four emails from UM after announcing the lawsuit, Wright said. However, the Mackinac Center continued pursuing the lawsuit because it took the university 106 days to provide the records and was seeking the additional emails UM deemed confidential.

Wright said he is pleased with the settlement between the Mackinac Center and UM and is hopeful that statutory fixes in the future will help make clear when public documents are supposed to be provided.

"We're happy we were able to get the university to improve its processes," Wright said. "We hope that having gone through this that in the future all FOIA applicants will have an easier time. It took us over 100 days to get the initial four emails and a lawsuit to get the other seven and that's not transparent.

"Now that there's going to be some internal reporting and additional people, we expect things will get better," he added.