Police reports released by the University of Illinois Springfield are redacted to the point that it is difficult to determine exactly how university police responded, or just what police were told by students and others after police received reports of rape and illicit fees paid to enter the U.S. and attend the university.

One example: “The (redacted) program requires very little records of the students,” a UIS police officer wrote in a portion of the redacted reports obtained by Illinois Times via a Freedom of Information Act request. “It has been reported to me (redacted).” A half-page is then blacked out.

In an email to the paper that accompanied the redacted reports, Thomas Hardy, University of Illinois chief records officer, asserts that nine FOIA exemptions allow the redactions. Illinois Times has asked the state attorney general to determine whether redactions are legal. The attorney general’s office has told UIS to provide the attorney general with unredacted copies of police reports and justify each redaction individually rather than simply list exemptions en masse without saying how each redaction is applicable under the law.