With media partners the Student Press Law Center has filed an amicus brief to a federal appeals court arguing that a lower court ruled correctly in granting the Chicago Tribune access to public records about a secret University of Illinois admissions program. The university argued that the records should be withheld on grounds of “student confidentiality.”
The brief reads, “For far too long, colleges and schools have been hiding behind bogus claims of ‘student privacy’ to conceal embarrassing information that ought to be a matter of public record. The courts have been virtually unanimous in telling schools that not every cocktail napkin with a student’s name is a confidential ‘education record,’ and this should be doubly true when disclosure is essential to get to the bottom of a scandal involving the abuse of public trust.” -db
From a press release from the Student Press Law Center, August 19, 2011.