A disgraced former college president who was once a law professor at the Coast Guard Academy is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard over their failure to respond to his requests for records related to the release of his personal information to CNN and others.

In a civil action filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, retired Coast Guard Capt. Glenn Sulmasy seeks to compel the defendants to produce “improperly withheld records related to unauthorized disclosures of confidential information, privacy breaches, and investigative files.”

The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Sulmasy, 57, resigned as president of Nichols College in Dudley, Mass., a year ago amid the college’s investigation of his conduct at the academy, where he was a faculty member for more than a decade before leaving in 2015. He later served as provost and chief academic officer of Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I., and became president of Nichols in 2021. On Sept. 21, 2023, CNN reported that he had exchanged hundreds of sexually suggestive messages with one of his academy students, prompting prosecutors to recommend charges be filed against him in military court.

CNN, the cable news network, attributed the revelations to “confidential records.” In the wake of the report, the academy banned Sulmasy from its grounds.

One of the FOIA requests sought records and electronically stored information related to unauthorized disclosures to CNN or any third party from Jan. 1, 2010, to the present. The scope of the request included “emails, memos, reports, logs, investigation files, access records, and communications involving the unauthorized disclosure of confidential records to CNN, particularly in relation to the September 21, 2023 CNN report ...”

It also sought any investigations and adverse actions taken against individuals involved in the unauthorized disclosure or “leak of information.”

Another FOIA request sought records related to a privacy breach that occurred between Sept. 22 and 29, 2023, in which “sensitive, unredacted documents” were accessible to certain Coast Guard personnel. The breach, the suit says, exposed personal information and investigative reports related to Sulmasy and others.

The final request, submitted under both the FOIA and the Privacy Act, requested all Sulmasy-related records from the last three years held by the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard Academy and the Coast Guard Investigative Service. It specifically targeted records related to “Operation Fouled Anchor,” the report of the Coast’s Guard’s internal investigation of sexual misconduct at the academy from 1990 to 2006, and any Privacy Act violations between Sept. 22 and 29, 2023.

“This request was designed to capture all possible records related to Capt. Sulmasy’s involvement in or association with Operation Fouled Anchor and the unauthorized disclosures referenced in the CNN report,” the suit says.

The FOIA and Privacy Act requests were submitted on March 27, 2024. The FOIA requires a response to requests within 20 working days while Privacy Act requests require a response within “a reasonable time.”

b.hallenbeck@theday.com