CHAMPAIGN — The News-Gazette has filed a request with the Illinois attorney general's office to review the University of Illinois' response to the newspaper's recent Freedom of Information Act request.

A request for review is a formal way of asking the public access counselor to determine if a FOIA violation has occurred.

In January, The News-Gazette requested copies of communications to or from senior university administrators and faculty leaders regarding enrollment management or anonymous emails. The request was filed shortly after it was revealed the university was investigating the source of anonymous emails sent to faculty on the subject of enrollment management. Lisa Troyer, UI President Michael Hogan's chief of staff, resigned prior to the investigation's conclusion. Investigators determined her laptop was the source of the emails.

Leading up to Troyer's resignation, faculty and administrators were debating the pros and cons of a set of recommendations for enrollment management. Hogan had commissioned a report that outlined several recommendations, including establishing enrollment goals on all three campuses, increasing diversity of students, recruiting more high-achieving students, centralizing admissions and financial-aid processing, establishing an executive director of enrollment management, and more. Faculty agreed with some reforms, but raised questions about others, including the centralization efforts and new position. Throughout the fall and winter the debate became heated and pitted some faculty leaders against Hogan.

The FOIA request asked for documentation/correspondence or any portion thereof regarding enrollment management and/or anonymous emails that were sent or received by Hogan, Troyer, special assistant to the president Avijit Ghosh, Chicago Chancellor Paula Allen-Meares, Urbana Chancellor Phyllis Wise, Springfield Chancellor Susan Koch, UI Chicago Professor and University Senates Conference Chair Don Chambers, Urbana faculty senate Chair Matthew Wheeler, Urbana faculty senate members Nicholas Burbules and Roy Campbell, UI Springfield faculty leader Tih-Fen Ting and member John Martin, from Nov. 1, 2011, through Jan. 9, 2012.

The university responded by releasing thousands of pages of documents to The News-Gazette beginning on Jan. 27 and concluding on Feb. 10.

Many of those pages contained communications that were redacted, or marked out in black. The university cited several exemptions, including personal information, drafts, notes and communications with legal counsel.

In addition, the batches of documents provided to The News-Gazette included some communications redacted in gray. The UI stated this information is non-responsive to the FOIA request because it did not pertain to enrollment management or the anonymous emails.

UI spokesman Tom Hardy said the university is committed to following the requirements and spirit of FOIA.

"To that end, the university produced more than 4,800 pages of responsive documents with limited, legally allowable redactions as determined by a team of university and campus staff — all trained FOIA officers — in consultation with legal counsel," he said.

"The university applied a limited number of exemptions to the responsive documents and all redactions taken pursuant to a statutory exemption were applied narrowly. There are many emails, or portions thereof, that could have been protected under a statutory exemption but were not," he added.