If, like myself or my colleagues here at Inside Investigator, you’ve waited for months or even years to receive records responsive to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, its ostensibly because records need to be reviewed and redacted.

Agencies tend to look at certain requests as more burdensome if they are large or ask for records containing sensitive information. And, in fairness, there are a lot of requests where that is legitimately the case. Agencies not only have to comply with FOIA, but with other statutory restrictions, including from the federal level, that prohibit the dissemination of certain information.

But, unfortunately, this process also gives cover to agency officials who are more interested in slow-walking requests and simply not complying with the principles of transparency.

And it can sometimes be difficult to tell which is which.

It’s a “who watches the watchers” situation: unless you know precisely what information you should be receiving (in which case you’re probably not filing a FOIA request), it’s difficult to know if certain exemptions have been properly claimed.

In Connecticut, public agency officials are supposed to tell you why redactions are made, i.e., they have to cite the specific redaction they are claiming. Several exemptions require agencies to conduct a more detailed balancing test showing that the public interest in withholding records outweighs the public interest in their disclosure. But they don’t always comply and, when you push back on them, they can get nasty and just refuse to tell you any useful information. After all, are you really going to submit a complaint to the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) because a public information officer refused to clarify which FOIA exemption they’re citing? I’ve been in this situation, and, as tempting as it is to force a public agency to do this and then have to justify why they’re more interested in wasting taxpayer resources on a FOIC fight than answering a simple question, the answer is it’s probably not the most productive use of time.

But given how often public agencies cite legal reviews and the redaction process as a reason FOIA responses take so long, you would think that when you finally get public records back, especially after a year, they would be flawless.

But that’s not been my experience. This week, Inside Investigator published an investigation about how Connecticut’s public universities handle sexual misconduct allegations, which was based on a series of FOIA requests submitted to Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), the University of Connecticut (UConn), and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy on September 23, 2023.

It’s one of the worst FOIA responses I’ve ever seen. Nearly 17 months later and UConn and the Coast Guard Academy still have not provided any responsive documents. While CSCU has provided some documents, they are not complete. Attachments to investigation reports into faculty misconduct, which should be covered by the request language, were not provided. And followup requests about those documents have not been answered.

In addition, CSCU’s redactions leave a lot to be desired. As I noted at length in Partial Record, CSCU clearly redacted more information than was proper under an exemption that incorporates the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). There’s a long history of higher education institutions using FERPA to hide documents from outside scrutiny. The law only covers records that directly relate to education records and explicitly does not contain certain directory information, such as a student’s name, phone number, standing, or degree program.

Yet, CSCU claimed as exempt under FERPA the name of an author of a news story published in Central Connecticut State University’s student newspaper and the name of a women’s sports team at Western Connecticut State University formerly coached by a faculty member who was accused of sexual misconduct. To claim FERPA covers these pieces of information, which are not only discoverable through public information available online but also clearly not educational records, is patently absurd.

And these are just the most blatant examples of improper redactions in the documents. I’ve identified a list of others that either seem improper, such as the names of buildings, or, due to context clues in the documents, have raised questions about what was redacted and whether it should be. CSCU has not responded to questions about those redactions.

But, perhaps more alarmingly, CSCU also failed to properly redact information that is legitimately covered by FOIA exemptions. In addition to incorporating FERPA, FOIA in Connecticut has an exemption preventing the names and addresses of students enrolled at public universities from being disclosed without their consent.

While CSCU claimed this exemption throughout the documents it turned over, shielding the names of students who submitted reports of sexual misconduct and witnesses who were interviewed as part of those investigations, state officials left several student names unredacted.

In one document, the name of the victim of what the college found to be a credible accusation of inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances appeared three separate times. Inside Investigator redacted that victim’s name in the documents we publicly posted in order to protect their privacy.

In several documents, CSCU also redacted the personal contact information of faculty who were the subject of misconduct investigations, which is covered by another FOIA exemption for information in personnel files that could constitute an invasion of privacy if disclosed. Inside Investigator also discovered a document where CSCU failed to redact the personal email address of a former faculty member who had been accused of sexual misconduct. We also redacted that to protect that individual’s privacy.

Nor is this the first time a public agency has been sloppy with redactions. As part of my investigation into inmates who are transferred into and out of Connecticut as part of interstate prisoner compacts, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records containing that information from the state Department of Corrections (DOC).`

After a long fight that dragged out over a year, that records request was finally closed well after the investigation had been published. One list of inmate locations was initially turned over without redactions, but an identical list was later provided with inmate names and locations redacted. DOC’s public information officer told Inside Investigator that the locations and names of the inmates that had been redacted because they were confidential and releasing them would be a security concern. Despite this belated claim, some of the inmate names they’d indicated should be redacted were actually readable.

Nor are those the only two incidents where Inside Investigator has been told information should be redacted but has received records that contain it.

The Inside Investigator team takes our obligation to journalistic ethics seriously. Our mission is to root out corruption, and corruption flourishes when there are no mechanisms to provide transparency into the inner workings of public agencies. But stories of corruption involve victims, too. And while we want to hold those who do wrong to account, we do not want to contribute to harms perpetrated against the victims.

That’s why we take steps like redacting information that public agencies have identified as being exempt from FOIA disclosure or withholding the names of minors involved in court cases, as we have done in reporting on the Harwinton STAR Home. Legally, we don’t have to, but we do because it’s the right thing to do.

But public agency officials’ failure to properly redact information is frustrating for two reasons.

First, while we take our responsibility to protect sensitive information seriously, there’s no guarantee other sensitive information isn’t being improperly handed over to individuals or groups who will not be responsible with it. Just last week, several classes of public workers, including teachers, testified about their concerns that the ability to obtain personal information through FOIA could be used to harass them.

Second, ongoing legal reviews and redactions are one of the leading reasons I’m quoted when I inquire about long outstanding requests. When, after months or years, I then receive back information that hasn’t been properly redacted, I can’t help but wonder whether that was really the case. And given the high standards that journalists are–rightly–held to when it comes to getting things right, it’s frustrating to know that not only are public officials failing to do their jobs and not receiving any real consequences, but that I then have to turn around and pore over records looking for sensitive information that needs to be protected.

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