Privacy and Press Freedom Collide in University Case; New York Times, 10/20/11

Tamar Lewin, New York Times; Privacy and Press Freedom Collide in University Case:

"Those requests set off a shootout between the state’s freedom of information law and the federal privacy law for educational records.

The university, backed by the big guns of academia, argues that the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or Ferpa, forbids disclosure of such information — and threatens the loss of federal financing if it hands over private records. Personal information about students is precisely what the federal privacy act was designed to protect, it said, raising the specter of a world in which students might be shamed by the public release of their academic credentials...

But The Tribune, backed by media groups including The New York Times, argues that the documents are not education records under the federal law, but rather records of questionable conduct, so the public’s right to know should prevail."