The public can’t find out how many times students are caught bringing guns into Ohio schools, or how those incidents are punished, because the Ohio Department of Education claims FERPA requires withholding those statistics, the Columbus Dispatch reported Dec. 10. According to the Dispatch, the Ohio DOE insists that reporting the number of gun-discipline cases… Continue reading Ohio schools withhold gun statistics, citing FERPA privacy
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On the SPLC podcast: New Medill database raises questions about patterns in prosecuting “shaken baby” cases
The sudden and mysterious death of an infant is a tragedy so wrenching that the justice system faces especially intense pressure to make certain that no killing goes unpunished.
Green light for public access to police records in Washington, STOP sign in Kentucky
Write-ups of police investigations are among journalists' most-wanted public records -- and among the hardest to obtain.
Year in review: Student media legal issues
The end of the year is a time for reflection, and that's prompted us to look back at stories we've published this year detailing the legal issues facing student journalists across the country.
Kansas Regents provoke academic freedom firestorm with policy forbidding “improper” online speech
If members of the Kansas Board of Regents have a low tolerance for unkind online speech, they'd best keep their browsers closed.
December 2013 podcast: Illinois reporters use public records to investigate Shaken-Baby Syndrome cases
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Medill Justice Project Fellow Lauryn Schroeder talks with Student Press Law Center Executive Director Frank LoMonte about how she used public records to investigate Shaken-Baby Syndrome cases.
Student activist’s First Amendment case against Valdosta State president faces key appeals-court showdown
Six years after Thomas Hayden Barnes was tossed out of college without warning for vociferously criticizing a plan to replace campus greenspace with parking garages, his First Amendment claim still awaits a day in court.That day is a bit closer with an argument docketed at the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit U.S.
Utah SPJ chapter files brief opposing school district's use of FERPA
Copies of footage from surveillance cameras are not confidential educational records, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Utah chapter says. Canyons School District didn’t agree, but the SPJ hopes the Utah Court of Appeals will.
Wake Forest student newspaper reports theft after story on fraternity's suspension
Two hundred copies of the Old Gold & Black student newspaper at Wake Forest University were stolen last week and only returned to their racks after university police intervened, editors say.
Wisconsin-Milwaukee student sues school, alleging public records violations
A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student is suing the university, alleging it failed to comply with the state’s public records law when it cited inordinately high labor costs and withheld documents relating to a university employee who is also a student.