‘An important ruling for transparency and public accountability in Lawrence,’ plaintiffs’ attorney says

Lawrence Public Schools must quickly comply with open records requests related to a controversial AI monitoring software at the heart of a federal lawsuit after months of delays, a federal judge has ruled.

A group of current and former Lawrence students are suing the school district over its use of Gaggle, an AI tool that sifts through anything attached to the district’s Google Workspace and flags content it deems a safety risk.

In November, they added to the lawsuit a list of Kansas Open Records Act complaints after the district failed to follow Kansas law in responding to requests. 

Federal Court Judge Kathryn Vratil ruled Wednesday on a handful of early motions in the case, marking one of the first major rulings in the dispute. 

Vratil ruled in favor of the students on their motion related to open records, setting a deadline for the end of the week for the district to substantively reply to the requests that have been unfulfilled since October.

A hearing set for April 23 will decide if the district acted in good faith and whether it needs to pay attorney fees and costs to the plaintiffs. 

“This is a significant win for our clients and a sharp rebuke of the district’s handling of public records,” Harrison Rosenthal, a lawyer representing the students, said. “The court also made clear that there was no discovery stay and that the district could not use this lawsuit as an excuse to withhold public records. That is an important ruling for transparency and public accountability in Lawrence.”

Vratil ruled in favor of the district on its motion to dismiss part of the lawsuit. The school board, as well as Lawrence High School administrators Greg Farley and Quentin Rials, will no longer be defendants. The lawsuit’s claims of First and Fourth Amendment violations will continue against the district. 

The district had argued that Farley and Rials were protected due to qualified immunity, a legal doctrine protecting public employees from liability unless they violate clearly established constitutional rights. The judge ruled that the school board’s role as a defendant was duplicative and it is not a separate legal entity from the district. 

Vratil also sided with the district in dismissing claims from students who have already graduated, because they are no longer subject to the district’s surveillance. 

The judge ruled that the district’s switch from Gaggle to ManagedMethods, a similar vendor with nearly identical capabilities, does not allow it immunity from the lawsuit’s claims. 

The district switched to using ManagedMethods this fall without an announcement or school board vote. The switch was not made public until the district’s lawyers argued it should allow dismissal of the lawsuit, something Vratil rejected. 

“Other than switching from Gaggle to ManagedMethods, defendants have not ceased or altered their challenged behavior,” Vratil wrote in the decision. 

Rosenthal said the decision left intact the core pieces of the student’s case. 

“We look forward to the district’s prompt compliance so students, families and taxpayers get answers,” Rosenthal said.  

A lawyer for the school district was not immediately available for comment. 

Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since April 2022, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read his complete bio here. Read more of his work for the Times here.

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