Disability compliance

Many of my FERPA Doc columns are borrowed by other Wiley editors for use in their newsletters. One such column appeared in the June 2015 issue of Disability Compliance for Higher Education . That column focused on what information could be disclosed about students under FERPA's health and safety emergency exception to written consent (34 CFR §99.31 (a) (10); 34 CFR §99.36). In that column, I reviewed the longstanding, illegal, non‐directory information disclosures by University of Iowa personnel to the county sheriff's office whenever a U of I student applied for a gun permit. This practice had continued for 21 years. It had begun after there had been a shooting on the Iowa City campus in 1992. I also reviewed the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 to determine whether Tech had properly used FERPA prior to the 2007 killings on that campus. In both the Iowa and Tech cases, I found that both schools demonstrated a professional, and ongoing, ignorance of FERPA. Their punishment should have gone beyond a mild slap on the wrist. (If you wish to read my commentary, let me know and I will send you the columns.)