After a three-year legal battle, a judge ruled Michigan State University must hand over police documents to The State News after it requested the records through the Freedom of Information Act. The university's student newspaper requested information on a Feb. 24, 2006 incident where one MSU student and two nonstudents were charged with assault for pointing a gun at three people, pouring gasoline on one of them and threatening to light that student on fire. Since the incident occurred, the three people involved were either convicted or saw their cases dismissed. Attorneys for MSU argued that the information The State News requested was exempt because it invaded personal privacy, but Jane Briggs-Bunting, president of the State News Board of Directors and director of MSU’s School of Journalism, said the newspaper was only looking for basic information that could be requested from any other police department. The university has until June 3 to hand over the police files to the student paper.

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