The University of Illinois Springfield paid $200,000 to a student in 2009 to settle allegations of sexual impropriety involving a coach for the women’s softball team, who resigned after the allegations came to light.
The university late Thursday released the settlement agreement, which contained payment information and a heavily redacted letter concerning the allegations. The release was in response to records requests filed by The State Journal-Register, which has been seeking the documents for more than a year.
The letter indicates that conduct by a coach may have risen to the level of sexual assault and battery.
The university released the settlement agreement and the letter, apparently written by an entity outside the university, after the attorney general’s public access counselor’s office told university officials this week the records must be made public under state law.
In a letter issued Friday, the attorney general’s staff also said UIS had failed to follow state law, which requires that public bodies notify the attorney general much sooner when an agency wants to use a FOIA exemption to withhold records.
The FOIA request was featured in a January 8, 2011, article in The State Journal-Register.
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