KU, student, teacher with Koch ties reach settlement

Posted August 27, 2015

By Sara Shepherd, The Lawrence Journal-World

Instead of going to trial, the case of Kansas University School of Business teacher Art Hall v. KU is being settled out of court.

KU announced today that the three parties involved — the university; Hall; and student Schuyler Kraus, president of the group Students for a Sustainable Future — had reached the settlement, which ends all litigation in the case.

Hall is a lecturer and director of KU’s Center for Applied Economics, a public policy think-tank within the School of Business. Previously he was chief economist for the Public Sector Group of Koch Industries Inc.

According to the agreement, KU and Hall will give Kraus “certain documents” related to her group’s Kansas Open Records Request, for which Students for a Sustainable Future paid $1,800 to fulfill after requesting the documents last fall.

Specifically, according to KU’s announcement, Kraus will get documents including “correspondence between Hall and other parties identified in the request that discuss the KU Center for Applied Economics’ use of funds provided by those parties.” Hall also will produce to her the funding agreement related to the creation of the Center for Applied Economics.

In exchange, Kraus agrees to withdraw her open records request and “release the university and Hall of all claims related to the matter,” KU said in its announcement.

To read more, go here.

Go here to read a commentary by Doug Anstaett, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, from the June 2015 Kansas Publisher.