Friday, September 21, 2001

Education Dept. Eases Student-Privacy Rules for FBI's Terrorism Investigation By ANDREA L. FOSTER Washington The Department of Education is advising college administrators that if the Federal Bureau of Investigation asks them for the records of specific students, they can provide the data without running afoul of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. FERPA, which is commonly known as the Buckley Amendment, bars colleges from releasing students' personal information without their written permission. But the law allows for several exceptions, including a "health or safety emergency." And the Family Policy and Compliance Office of the Department of Education is using the exception to tell colleges that they can turn over student data to the FBI, said Lindsey Kozberg, an Education Department spokeswoman. She said several colleges had contacted the department for guidance after being approached by law-enforcement authorities who were investigating last week's terrorist attacks. "Generally, the guidance we have given is that the exception applies," Ms. Kozberg said. She said college administrators with questions about whether it is appropriate to turn over the data should call the family compliance office at (202) 260-3887. "The best advice we can provide is that this is decided on a case-by-case basis," she added. She declined to elaborate on what circumstances the department considers when advising college officials on the dissemination of student records. Normally, law-enforcement officials would need to have a subpoena to gain access to student data. But some of the colleges that have been contacted recently say no subpoenas have been used. Law-enforcement officials have approached administrators from at least two colleges asking for the names of students who they believe can assist them in investigating the terrorist attacks. Auburn University at Montgomery, in Alabama, was contacted, as was an unnamed community college with a large population of Muslim students. A lawyer for the community college spoke on the condition that neither he nor the college be identified. "I don't want to make students fearful," he said. The lawyer said the FBI had inquired about the local street address of a student from the Middle East with an Arabic-sounding name who was admitted to the United States on an F-1 visa, which is how most foreign students enter the country. The lawyer said the college provided the data to the FBI without seeking the student's consent or alerting the student afterward. George Hill, the registrar of Auburn University at Montgomery, said the chief of the campus police contacted him on the morning of September 11, shortly after the attacks, and said that the Alabama Bureau of Investigation wanted the names of all foreign students who were enrolled at the university and their countries of their origin. Mr. Hill handed over a list of about 89 students to the bureau. The agency was working in cooperation with the FBI, he added. It is unclear how many colleges the FBI has asked to provide student data. But in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks, a handful of colleges sought guidance from the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers on whether administrators should comply with FBI requests for student records, said Barmak Nassirian, the associate executive director of the registrars' group. After those initial calls, a "torrent" of colleges have been contacting the group for help on the issue, not necessarily because they have been approached by FBI agents but because they anticipate such inquiries or are simply curious, Mr. Nassirian added. In light of the inquiries, Jerry Sullivan, the executive director of the group, sent an e-mail message to the group's members Wednesday telling them that the family compliance office says releasing the data to law-enforcement authorities without students' permission is "allowable under FERPA emergency disclosure provisions." The message states that the office does not plan to issue a rule on the matter. "Despite the clear emergency we now face, the emergency-disclosure provision of FERPA mandates releases are to be considered on a case-by-case basis, and therefore, a blanket policy statement is not appropriate," the message reads. It concludes by saying that Congress is considering approving an anti-terrorism bill that would include a provision loosening FERPA provisions to allow "nonconsensual release of non-directory information to law-enforcement authorities." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Education Dept. eases student-privacy rules for FBI's terrorism investigation On campuses across U.S., students hold rallies for peace, drawing mixed responses Private colleges in urban areas are most likely to feel fallout from last week's attacks, report says Pakistan's Islamic colleges provide the Taliban's spiritual fire In Afghanistan, a forlorn university prepares for even more isolation Faced with no way to pay for it, U. of California shelves dual-admissions plan Scholars question the image of the Internet as a race-free Utopia A political scientist creates an online university catering to conservatives