The Kentucky Press Association will provide $7,500 for Kentucky Kernel’s legal fees in the university’s lawsuit against the independent student paper. 

KPA announced the contribution Tuesday in a Facebook post. The money comes from KPA’s Legal Defense Fund, which has reimbursed $750,000 for newspapers’ legal expenses over the course of 20 years.   

“The LDF program was set up to assist newspapers financially when they find themselves involved in lawsuits,” said KPA Executive Director David T. Thompson in the post. “Public agencies basically have a bottomless well because of taxpayer dollars available while newspapers are stymied because they don’t have the financial resources like UK and other public agencies.”

UK filed a suit against the Kernel last week over an open records request for documents about an sexual harassment investigation of a former UK associate professor. 

The Kernel also started a GoFundMe on Saturday for donations to support its legal fees. As of Tuesday afternoon, the campaign has over $9,000 from 160 donors.

Related: UK follows through on promise of suit against Kernel