I’m on the student newspaper and I wanted to find out why my school made so many changes to our school lunch program recently. I submitted a FOIA request asking to see all of the principal’s email messages in the past year. The school told me it was going to charge me $5,000 to turn over the emails! I can’t afford that, so I can’t do the story. Is this right? Can the school charge me this much? Aren’t the emails public info?

You’re passionate about an issue and you want to take a stance. So, you gather up a bunch of students and organize a protest—a sit-in, a walk-out, a picket line, etc. But does the school have the power to shut it down? Aren’t these protests protected by the First Amendment?