FERPA, FOIA and the FDA

Ohio Public Records Briefing - Issue #20

Happy October! We hope that, now that you’ve subscribed to the Public Records Briefing, public records aren’t nearly as scary as your neighbor’s gory Halloween decorations.

Fun Fact

FERPA kinda sounds like this. But it’s an acronym for the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. This is a federal statute, but Ohio’s Public Records Act recognizes federal law exceptions. While FERPA does prohibit schools from releasing information that would reveal identifiable information about a student, FERPA doesn’t directly apply to law enforcement agencies.

We note this because in 2020, the University of Cincinnati instructed its police department (that has arrest authority) to deny public records requests for records relating to campus sexual assault investigations based on the notion that such records were protected by FERPA. These weren’t school records, but they were investigatory records just like those held by other police department. UC claimed that because the police records were shared with university deans, they became FERPA records and couldn’t be released.

The Ohio Court of Claims begged to differ. In its ruling, the court confirmed that simply sharing copies of law enforcement records with university officials doesn’t turn records into FERPA protected records.