“It seems like Western’s policy now is they’re just not going to provide [that info] and that flies in the face of the intent of the law."
While the law says the records must be released, the Department of Education has said that institutions don’t need to release the contents of records they believe would potentially allow someone to piece together students’ identities. “I think the default position when that happens is you just clamp down, you don’t provide that information,” Heistand said. However, he disagrees with Western’s interpretation of FERPA in cases regarding a sex offense or violent offense that result in a finding of guilt. “It was very clear that if those two things were met, you were supposed to be able to get access to basic information about what the school had done, which included the name,” he said. “If the person is found guilty, the name is released and what they’re charged with and what the outcome of the proceeding was. That was supposed to be made available.” He said the change in the law was implemented to provide more transparency to campus discipline systems, as justice was increasingly being handed out behind closed doors. It was also to ensure discipline is being administered fairly for all students involved, he said. “Every time reporters have been able to get behind the door of these campus court systems, the things they find are really disturbing,“ he said. Without knowing the names of suspended students, reporters from The Western Front and the AS Review have been unable to ascertain whether any students reported are repeat offenders. They’ve also been unable to see if there are other factors that might affect the discipline process, such as past convictions or special standing like being an athlete. Hiestand pointed out that while universities can lose federal funding for violating FERPA, this penalty has never been used by the Department of Education for a FERPA violation. “It seems like Western’s policy now is they’re just not going to provide [that info] and that flies in the face of the intent of the law,” he said. “The law was intended to provide more transparency to these campus disciplinary systems.” That transparency benefits not just survivors, but students accused of misconduct as well, by providing students confidence in the system, Hiestand said. Unredacted records would allow the public to see if students found to have committed the same violations received similar punishments and were not treated differently, he said. “[People] want to know how some of these investigations are being done, that they’re thorough, they’re competent,” he said. “And none of this stuff is available, none of this is stuff the public has access to. And that breeds distrust. You have to have trust in your justice system. If there’s no trust, there’s no justice system.” This is a sidebar to the story "Suspended for sexual assault, readmitted one year later." Read the full story here.
