Is That a Valid Use of Ferpa? The Student Press Law Center Is Watching

By Michael Stratford

Anyone seeking records from a college or university in the past several decades has undoubtedly had his or her quest for information made more complicated, or even impossible, by a 1974 federal law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

It happened recently at Butler University, where campus police declined to provide a newspaper with a copy of a report about a fight involving a pellet gun. In September, Hudson Valley Community College refused to release an incident report