A judge has ruled that a case against the University of Missouri regarding its open records practices will go to trial.
Circuit Judge Jeff Harris on Friday rejected the university’s request to end the 2016 lawsuit filed by Animal Rescue Media Education, The Columbia Daily Tribune reported .
The lawsuit said the university estimated it would cost more than $82,000 to fulfill the animal rights group’s request for records relating to about 180 animals used in research. The lawsuit said the cost is so high that it prevents the public from accessing information.
The ruling Friday “means that the defendants told the judge that they didn’t think we had a case and the judge disagreed,” said Daniel Kolde, the attorney representing the animal rights group, which is also known as the Beagle Freedom Project.
The university declined to comment on the judge’s decision.
“We take our obligations under the Sunshine Law very seriously and complete hundreds of requests every year,” University spokesman Christian Basi wrote in an email. “As stewards of public resources, it’s our duty to remain transparent and accountable to the public.”
Harris noted in his ruling that the Open Records Act is meant to “favor of openness unless otherwise provided by law.”
Harris said one issue that needs to be settled at trial is whether the university is keeping records in a manner that inflates costs when compiling requested records. Other issues include the computation of time needed to respond to requests and whether principal investigators, who cost about $100 an hour, should be used to compile records.
Standing in the field where the last of the Sept. 11 planes crashed, President Donald Trump praised the “band of brave patriots” who helped bring down the jetliner and saved the lives of countless others in the nation’s capital.
Trump paid his respects Tuesday at a rural Pennsylvania field where the fourth airplane hijacked that day crashed after its 40 passengers and crew learned about attacks in New York and Washington and tried to storm the cockpit.
Terrorists at the controls of Flight 93 planned to fly it into the U.S. Capitol, Trump said. But through the bravery and sacrifice of passengers and crew, he said, “the Forty” spared Washington from a devastating strike.
“A piece of America’s heart is buried on these grounds, but in its place has grown a new resolve to live our lives with the same grace and courage as the heroes of Flight 93,” the president said, standing on a dais just yards from where the plane went down.
“This field is now a monument to American defiance. This memorial is now a message to the world: America will never, ever submit to tyranny,” Trump said as applause rang out from the audience of Flight 93 family members, dignitaries and others.
Before he spoke, Trump listened as the names of the 40 victims were read aloud, followed by the tolling of bells. He was joined by his wife, first lady Melania Trump, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and former Gov. Mark Schweiker, who was the state’s lieutenant governor on 9/11.
Nearly 3,000 people died that day when other airplanes were flown into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an attack planned by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed in May 2011 during a U.S. military operation ordered by President Barack Obama.
In Shanksville, Trump spoke of the passengers who boarded the United Airlines 8 a.m. flight from Newark, New Jersey, expecting to get off in San Francisco.
“They boarded the plane as strangers, and they entered eternity linked forever as true heroes,” he said. “A band of brave patriots turned the tide on our nation’s enemies.”
Before leaving Washington, Trump marked the anniversary with tweets, including praise for Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney who was New York’s mayor on 9/11.
Trump had been in his Trump Tower penthouse, 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) from the World Trade Center, during the 2001 attacks. He has a mixed history with Sept. 11, often using the terror strikes to praise the response of New Yorkers but also making unsubstantiated claims about what he did and saw that day. He has also accused fellow Republican George W. Bush, who was president, of failing to keep America safe.
He has said, when talking about Muslims, that “thousands of people were cheering” in Jersey City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, as the towers collapsed. There is no evidence of that in news stories at the time.
Trump also has said he lost “hundreds of friends” in the New York attack. He has not provided names but has mentioned knowing a Roman Catholic priest who died while serving as a chaplain to the city’s fire department.
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