David Maly reports:
Student Body President Kori Rady illegally leaked the personal information of roughly 140 UT students in a May 5 email, according to university interpretation of federal law.
Rady sent the email to Phillip Wiseman, then chief justice of the Student Government Judicial Court, in an effort to respond to a student’s request for the information that the student had escalated to the Judicial Court. Rady cc’d the student, several members of the student press, a UT administrator and two Student Government LISTSERVs. Members of the media to receive the email were myself, then Daily Texan reporter Nicole Cobler and the Daily Texan editor, then Laura Wright. The email contained information on applicants for internal and external Student Government positions, with resumes for all applicants and internal initiative statements from students applying for internal positions. Roughly 60 of the resumes contained UT GPAs, ranging between a 2.77 and 4.0.
Rady said in an email to The Horn that the information was released based on misinformation.
Read more on The Horn.
This one had me scratching my head a bit. Does a student body have the same obligations as the parent university under FERPA? Are they “officials” under FERPA? If so, I wonder what FERPA training colleges and universities insist student organization representatives and officials undergo.
If you ever served on a college or university student body as an officer, did you receive any FERPA training?