FGM-Licensing Medical Board Wants $12,792.93 to Search Its Emails
Doctors closed an investigation into FGM for free. Now, they want $12,793 to explain why.
The Michigan medical licensing board that licensed Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, a Detroit physician federally charged in 2017 with performing female genital mutilation on young girls, wants $12,792.93 for emails that would explain why they are continuing to license FGM-practicing doctors.
As I’ve previously reported, Dr. Nagarwala still holds an active Michigan medical license despite federal prosecution, and state records show Michigan never held administrative hearings on her license. The medical board closed its investigation without public explanation.
To find out why, I filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests asking for internal emails about how Michigan handled the FGM investigation. These FOIA requests seek the internal communications that would reveal how that decision was made. The requests were made only for electronic records, after LARA claimed that searching records prior to 2020 would require “manual review of thousands of paper files.”
The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) responded by sending an invoice for $12,792.93 to retrieve the emails. LARA’s fee estimates break down to $2,508 for one request, $2,093 for another, and $8,190 for a third. The largest invoice claims it would take 405 combined hours of labor to search their emails for basic keywords like “FGM” and “female genital cutting.”
According to LARA’s written response to my questions, although they confirmed they could search every email box at once with enterprise-wide keyword searches, their preferred method is “contacting every staff member with the terms to search,” each employee “performing the searches and providing results,” and the liaison “following up with any staff who do not respond timely.” One invoice explicitly calculates: “153 employees × 12 keywords × 5 minutes.”
When I asked why they don’t just search all inboxes at once, the same LARA representative gave multiple contradictory answers. One email claimed enterprise-wide search would involve “a similarly priced fee estimate” but could “take much longer.” Another cited the “heightened cost” of enterprise-wide search as the reason for using manual methods instead. In other words, according to LARA, keyword search would cost the same but take longer, unless it takes the same amount of time but costs more.
When I asked whether their email records are maintained in an electronic system that supports keyword searching, LARA’s FOIA liaison responded: “Not sure what they mean by this. Is Outlook an ‘electronic system?’” The liaison also admitted they would have “no idea of the volume” of responsive records until each employee performed their individual searches—meaning the fee estimate isn’t based on any actual assessment of how many records exist.
Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act requires agencies to use “the most economical means available” when fulfilling requests. Having 153 employees individually search their own inboxes, compile results, and forward them to a coordinator, rather than running a single enterprise search, is the least economical way to approach the problem.
Entering “FGM” into a search bar is not a $12,792.93 task that requires 153 people and over 400 hours of labor. Instead, this appears to be willful incompetence to avoid accountability. These are public documents that the state must provide me by law. They can’t legally say no directly, so instead it appears they are making the process of providing the documents as convoluted and expensive as possible, which is also against the law, but harder to prove.
The difference between their handling of reasonable questions from the public and female genital cutting could not be more stark. The Michigan medical licensing board closed an investigation into FGM for free, without a single hearing. Now, they want $12,793 to explain their actions to the public. The board has also not responded to multiple requests for comment, which is free.
I’ve filed a formal appeal challenging these fees. LARA has 10 business days to respond. However, if this appeal does not prevail, the only way to discover the full story behind why Michigan is licensing FGM-practicing doctors would be either to pay the fee or file a lawsuit. Since both would require funding, I have started a GoFundMe to support this investigation. Please contribute here:
GoFundMe: Expose Medical Board for Licensing an FGM Doctor
This is an ongoing investigation. I’m seeking to raise funds to cover FOIA costs and continue this work. If you’d like to support this investigation, you can contribute here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/expose-medical-board-for-licensing-an-fgm-doctor