Kristin Pitts reports:
Requests for graduation records reveal that Elizabeth City State University is the only institution in the University of North Carolina system to deny the public access to directory information about its students.
The university’s no-access policy came up when ECSU officials were asked if two students — Rainey Dorothea Bowden and Ynisha Robinson — were allowed to graduate after the pair allegedly assaulted another student last year.
Interviewed this week, Chancellor Willie Gilchrist said he could not say definitively whether the two graduated in December.
“What I can say to you is, at this point, because of (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) I can’t say anymore than what I’ve said,” Gilchrist said in an interview Wednesday.
But representatives from other UNC schools said that the rules outlined in FERPA are precisely why they are required to release information about their students.
Read more in the Daily Advance.