In late March, the National Association of College Stores filed suit in Tippecanoe County court in Indiana to get a nonredacted copy of the Amazon contract with Purdue University for an e-storefront with Amazon and an on-campus pickup service. As the leading trade organization for campus stores, NACS said that it wanted to better understand the newest entrant to the college market.
Purdue has recently restored many of the deleted sections of the contract, and NACS is satisfied. According to NACS spokesperson Laura Massie, “The Purdue agreement now reveals information about special programs, third parties, space diagrams, and Amazon’s integration with the school’s learning management system and adoptions. As a result, NACS is dropping its lawsuit against Purdue.”
The Indiana-based university, together with University of California, Davis and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is one of the first three colleges in the U.S. to partner with the mega-online retailer to handle some or all of its school store sales.
As state-financed universities, the terms of their agreements and what Amazon is offering instead of or in addition to campus stores already in place are required to be available through the Freedom of Information Act. Purdue had been the only school to heavily redact its contract, claiming “trade secrets.”
