Education Department Loses School Voucher FOIA Case

In a major blow to the Department of Education, U.S.Federal District Court Judge Coleen Kollar-Kotelly has ruled that documents that the Department exchanged with a local government and two private entities fail to meet the threshold requirements for Exemption 5, and therefore must be released.

Plantiff People for the American Way sought the documents concerning the D.C. Public School's voucher program.  The Department of Education withheld documents it exchanged with the D.C. Mayor's Office and two private entities that were doing studies on the program (but not, the judge ruled for the Department of Education).  In a lengthy analysis, the court found that under the Supreme Court's holding in Dep't of the Interior & Bureau of Indian Affairs  v. Klamath Water Users Protective Ass'n, 532 U.S. 1 (2001), these exchanged documents were not "intra or inter agency" and therefore were not protected pursuant to Exemption 5.

This is one of the most detailed discussion of the issues brought forth under the Klamath decision.  I would expect more in the future as the federal government continues to trade documents with other entities, in sometimes undefined relationships.