Victims of violent crimes on college campuses can now shareinformation about their attacker and the nature of the crimewithout fear of violating student privacy laws, according to astatement released this month by the U.S. Department of Education(USDE).
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA)was signed into legislation to provide federal protection forstudents against the unauthorized release of their educationrecords. The law covers any records, files, documents and othermaterials that contain information directly related to a studentand are maintained by an educational institution.
According to FERPA, institutions receiving federal funding couldnot have a policy permitting the release of personally identifiablerecords or files without expressed written permission from studentsor their parents.
Historically, colleges and universities have used FERPA torefuse the release of information about students who commit crimeson their campuses. However, FERPA does not provide any protectionfor perpetrators of violent crimes, according to LeRoy S. Rooker,director of the Education Department's Office of Family PolicyCompliance.
"When an institution determines that an accused student is analleged perpetrator and has violated the institution's rules, thenthere are no restrictions on disclosure or re-disclosure of thefinal results of a disciplinary proceeding," Rooker said.
The clarification came at the request of Security on Campus, anon-profit victim-assistance organization.
Last October, at the College of William and Mary inWilliamsburg, Va., a woman accused another student of raping herand as a result of the college's disciplinary action, the allegedattacker was expelled. When the college later allowed the allegedattacker to return to campus, the woman distributed posters thataccused the alleged attacker, by name, of raping her. The collegeremoved the posters, saying they violated the federal law. Securityon Campus objected.
The college rescinded its decision after Security on Campus senta letter to the Education Department that called the move an"unconscionable abuse of power" and a misinterpretation of the law.Five months later, the department formally agreed and issued theclarification.
In 1998, Congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) secured an amendment toFERPA that stripped confidentiality from student disciplinaryinformation when the accused student was found responsible in acase involving a crime of violence or non-forcible sex offense.
"Many schools have been exploiting ambiguous regulations to keepvictims silent, requiring them not to tell anybody the results ofthe hearing as a condition of being told themselves," said S.Daniel Carter, vice-president of Security on Campus.
Most colleges handle campus crime in-house, according to Carter,by diverting reports into student disciplinary proceedings that areout of the public eye rather than off-campus criminal courts.
"They then classify the crime as a part of the accused student'seducational records," said Howard K. Clery, co-founder of thevictim assistance organization. "Campus crime victims have aninalienable right to talk about their cases."
The Department of Education, according to Rooker, "is in theprocess of considering what statutory or regulatory latitude theremay be to permit limited re-disclosures" when the accused studentis not found responsible for violating an institutions rules.
