Congressman Tom Barrett’s Campaign Seeks High School Students’ Emails After Anti-ICE Walkout

Correction 2/18 9:24 p.m.: This story and headline initially said Barrett’s office filed the FOIA request. The request was filed by Barrett’s campaign.

A staffer for U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett requested emails between staff and students at East Lansing High School and Barrett’s political opponent, William Lawrence, a Democrat running for his seat in Congress, Michigan Information and Research Services reported last week.

The staffer, William Funk, requested communications between students involved in the high school’s Students For Political Action Club after the group organized a walkout protesting the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in January. The Freedom Of Information Act request asked for messages between students and staff, according to MIRS.

ELHS English teacher Tim Akers told East Lansing Info that in the fall he agreed to become the adviser for the Students for Political Action Club. In the organization’s first few months, students organized coat and food drives. The club also invited Lawrence, a candidate for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District and an ELHS alumnus, to speak.

“So Will came in and talked a little bit about his background,” Akers said, “how, in high school, he got involved in civic awareness, and talked a little bit about his policies and his platform for what he’s running for. Then he did a Q&A with the kids.”

Members of the political action club told Akers they wanted to organize a protest against ICE shortly after Minneapolis woman Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent in January. Akers advised students to connect with school administration.

“The kids were out there,” he said of the walkout. “[Superintendent] Dori [Leyko] was out there. Students were out there. Teachers were out there. [Administrators] even let them use the PA system. And that was it.”

In addition to the walkout, students met at the East Lansing Public Library to write letters to Barrett and U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin sharing their concerns about ICE.

Akers said he was called into ELHS Principal Ashley Schwarzbek’s office last week and told that Barrett’s campaign had requested all emails exchanged between him and students in the club regarding the protest, as well as any connections he and the students had with Lawrence.

“I’m curious how Barrett even heard about Will Lawrence coming to speak,” he said. “They didn’t publicize it. He showed up, spoke to about 30 kids, and that was it.”

ELHS Senior Quinn LaFaive is one of the club’s student leaders whose emails were requested. He told ELi he found the situation funny.

“He FOIA’d a high school club that was organizing a walkout and expected to get some sort of documentation,” he said. “I don’t know if he realized that we’re not really doing documents. We were just kind of talking about it. I think he was kind of wasting his time, in a way. It didn’t make much sense, so it was kind of funny to me.”

LaFaive said the request felt like Barrett was trying to find wrongdoing where there was none. Nevertheless, he extended an invitation to Barrett to speak with the group.

“I haven’t heard a response from him,” he said. “But any politician or anybody involved in politics or the political system in our country is welcome to come speak to our club.”

Akers said he thinks it’s odd Barrett sought emails related to the ICE protest, because similar demonstrations took place at many school districts. 

Akers said most of the emails were one-way communications from students to him because he sees students during the school day and responds in person.

Akers also said he believes Leyko and Schwarzbek will likely be upset that he went public with the FOIA request, but he did not want to hide it from parents of student club members.

“I think they have a right to know their kids’ communications are being FOIA’d by an elected official,” he said. “I can’t control what the kids are saying, quite frankly, and I don’t think this is anything the school district has done wrong. I don’t know why they would be afraid of people knowing the FOIA request happened.”

In a phone interview with ELi, Lawrence said he spoke with the student group in December but had no correspondence about the high school’s walkout demonstration. When the group later planned an event at the library, he said he visited them there.

“I support them exercising their free speech and protesting the conduct by ICE that’s happening in Minneapolis and around the country,” he said. “I’m really proud of them.”

Of the FOIA request by Barrett’s campaign, Lawrence was less charitable.

“Tom Barrett voted to give $75 billion to ICE,” he said. “ICE has proceeded to rampage across the country, murdering people and tearing up the Constitution. Now he’s trying to intimidate high school students for speaking out against it. The only thing thinner than Tom Barrett’s skin is his record of accomplishment in office.”

Barrett’s office did not respond to requests for comment.