One of my frequent complaints with Connecticut’s lack of a time limit for public agencies to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests is that it effectively allows for the law to be ignored until a requester files a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC).
All the law says is that public agencies have to respond to requests “promptly.” Unlike other states, Connecticut public agencies are under no obligation to fulfill requests within a certain number of days. The FOIC has determined that agency officials need to respond quickly and without undue delay in fulfilling requests, but the only enforcement mechanism requesters have is to file a complaint with the commission.
On the back of months-long waits for requests, I and other Inside Investigator staff have received documents almost instantaneously after we’ve threatened to file a FOIC complaint.
Next week, Inside Investigator will go to Hartford for a hearing in one of three complaints we currently have before the Freedom of Information Commission. This particular complaint is about the University of Connecticut (UConn) failing to respond to a twenty-month-old request for records about the school’s response to sexual misconduct allegations.
It took roughly 17 months for UConn to begin turning over documents. And the first batch of records did not come until two months after we filed a complaint with the FOIC. The second batch came last week, just days before a scheduled hearing.
Approximately twenty months after the request was filed in September 2023, UConn has still not provided all the requested records or addressed questions about documents it turned over.
One of the biggest issues with UConn’s response is its failure to cite the exemptions it claimed. That not only violates FOIA, but also makes it impossible to know whether certain redactions should be challenged. After UConn provided an initial batch of records, we asked them to clarify what exemptions were being claimed and provided a list of missing documents they referenced, but that had not been provided.
In the second batch of documents UConn provided last week, they released additional documents related to one of several cases we had raised questions about. They also specified in an email that two exemptions had been claimed for the documents that were turned over, one relating to the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), another protecting the names and addresses of students from disclosure without their approval.
But there were no in-line citations noting which exemptions were being claimed in which instance. Again, this makes it impossible to challenge redactions.
Inside Investigator also filed an identical request to Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU). While their response is incomplete, and we have another FOIC complaint related to their handling of the request, they did note the specific exemption they were citing next to information that was being redacted.
That’s essential because I can use context clues to determine what kind of information has been withheld and whether it’s an appropriate use of that redaction. For example, CSCU withheld the name of an article published by a student newspaper and claimed it was exempt because it was information FERPA prohibited from being released. But FERPA applies only to records that directly relate to a student and that are maintained by a college.
I am absolutely confident that’s not an appropriate use of that exemption, and Inside Investigator will be able to argue that before the FOIC. The documents UConn provided contain numerous redactions that I suspect are abuses of the FERPA exemption. Information like the calendar year and spring or fall semester have been redacted. That shouldn’t be subject to being withheld either under FERPA or the other exemption UConn is claiming.
It’s these kinds of oversights that make FOIA requests frustrating. Instead of looking at a list of redactions, I have to comb through documents and do a lot of guesswork about what exemptions might apply and whether they’re being claimed appropriately. FOIA shouldn’t involve that much guesswork.
But even more frustrating is the perception that agencies only participate in this process under duress once the FOIC gets involved.
Inside Investigator filed a complaint about this request three months after being told UConn was still working on collecting documents. We did not receive any documents until we filed an FOIC complaint. We asked questions about missing documents and UConn’s obligations to name the redactions it was claiming. Those questions were clearly valid since the university turned over some of the additional documents we believed were missing and made a cursory attempt to fulfill its requirement to cite the redactions it was claiming.
On its face, this is not a particularly complex request: we’re seeking records related to the school’s response to sexual misconduct allegations within a set period of time. There’s really no ambiguity in what kinds of records should be responsive. There may be legal complexities associated with reviewing and releasing those records. We understand the privacy concerns, especially for students who were victims or who participated in investigations on condition of anonymity. We specifically redacted the names of students missed by CSCU when they turned over documents in order to protect their privacy.
But if those issues are contributing to the twenty-month-plus wait time for this request, UConn should be more communicative about that. Even with the specter of an FOIC judgment in the picture, we’re going months between asking questions about the request and receiving a response from UConn. When UConn does respond, they’re only answering some of our questions and providing no update on other outstanding elements of the request. And that’s just not good enough. It’s not good enough in the handling of any FOIA request, but it’s particularly alarming when the subject matter of that request is the potential sexual abuse of minors and young adults.
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