University discusses student privacy rights

In a panel discussion yesterday in the Frist Campus Center, University officials declined to say whether student records have been subpoenaed in the post-Sept. 11 terrorism investigation.

Student records are protected by the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act. Under F.E.R.P.A., the University may provide outside agencies with student records only if the student gives permission or in response to a subpoena, in which case the University is required to notify the student. However, the recently enacted USA Patriot Act underscores an aspect of the law that allows law enforcement agencies, under certain circumstances, to request the records and to require that a university keep the request secret.

Under the Patriot Act, law enforcement officials must present to the court "a certification that there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the education records are likely to contain information [which is] relevant to an authorized investigation or prosecution."

"What happens is that, theoretically, any investigators for any reason can ask for a court order to get the education records of a student and [require the institution] to produce them and not tell a soul," said University counsel Peter McDonough.

McDonough declined to say whether the University had received any requests for student records in the federal terrorism investigation.

"This is not an area that we've spent a lot of time on," he said.

Though some students expressed dissatisfaction with McDonough's response, demanding to know whether the University had released student records, Wilson School professor Phil Weiser, a former Supreme Court clerk, said that Princeton's "enlightened leadership" was acting in the University's and students' best interests.

"Sometimes not disclosing information is protective," Weiser said. "It's the prudent course to think about it. There are a lot of instances where it could do more harm than good."

Taufiq Rahim '04, a member of the Princeton Peace Network and officer of the Muslim Students Association, presented Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson, McDonough and Weiser with a letter signed by 18 student groups objecting to "racial profiling" by investigators.

The letter urges the University "to consider a position of non-compliance to investigations that appear to be primarily motivated by considerations of national origin or ethnicity."

The University will take a wait-and-see approach to ethnic profiling in law enforcement requests for student records. "The situation we are in now is to judge cases as they occur, realizing there is not much case history yet," said Dickerson.

Administrators say they will monitor any subpoenas that are received for signs of ethnic profiling.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

"I would notice over time if they're coming in every three seconds or always signed by the same judge or for people of a specific citizenship," McDonough said.

Some audience members said they would like to see Princeton take a more proactive stance in protecting student privacy. "It's the duty of the University to challenge the laws in a reasonable way," one woman said.

The University administration is trying to balance concerns about protecting student privacy and compliance with the law.

"We need to know if there are students or faculty or staff or others on campus for whom there have been serious cases," Dickerson said. She encouraged students to contact the administration — the Dean of Undergraduate Students, the Dean of the Graduate School or the Ombuds Office — with concerns about ethnic profiling, subpoenas or law enforcement agencies' requests for interviews.

"We don't live in a a police state, and if we edge up to where individual rights are more and more comprimised, the terrorists have won," Weiser said. "If there is more debate on campus about these issues, I think that is good."