Law experts question redactions made in Freedom of Information requests
Several redactions to Freedom of Information Act responses made by Central Michigan University’s general counsel have some access law scholars scratching their heads.
A FOIA request made by Central Michigan Life for all FOIA requests submitted to CMU from July 1, 2009 to Feb. 2, 2010 had several pieces of “directory information” blacked out in them. Nine of the 43 FOIA requests had information redacted, nearly 21 percent.
CMU’s explanation for the redactions was to protect citizens from “an unwarranted invasion of their privacy.” CMU also cited the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, stating “the names of students and information which would lead to the identification of those students ... would prevent the University from complying with (FERPA).”
Carolyn Carlson, assistant professor of communication at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Ga., and chairwoman of the Society of Professional Journalists FERPA committee, said the idea that FOIA requests are educational documents is not what the law is intended for.
“Schools tend to be very creative in the way they misuse FERPA,” she said. “FERPA is to cover education records — grades, that sort of thing.”
Mary Roy, assistant general counsel, said the way CMU interprets FERPA is that all documents at CMU are considered “education records.”
“It’s every single piece of paper,” she said. “Education records are further defined in the Act as anything or any record created or maintained by the institution.”
Carlson disagreed with that interpretation.
“They tend to think that every piece of paper with a student’s name on it is an educational document,” she said. “I’ve never seen that before. That’s a new one on me.”
Dave Cuillier, assistant professor of journalism at the University of Arizona and chairman of the SPJ FOIA Committee, said he sees higher education institutions as being creative in how they apply FOIA laws.
“Universities are notorious for that,” he said.
Roy said the general counsel office is protective of student information that could narrow it down to a specific student. Information requests for items such as the entire freshman class list is not protected, but information singling out individuals students is.
“In this case, there was certainly identifiable information in those documents, so we have to remove it, because we can’t release it without the student’s consent,” she said.
According to the U.S. Department of Education website, “schools may disclose, without consent, ‘directory’ information such as a student’s name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards and dates of attendance.”
Roy said if there’s a question on what to redact, the university will remove information before keeping it public.
“It’s a judgment call sometimes. We would rather be overly protective of privacy-type information, especially in this day in age,” she said. “Because once it’s out there, you can’t get it back.”
