Administrators at the University of Florida got caught red-handed attempting to withhold information responsive to a public records request filed by UF YAF Chair Caitlyn Helm in an apparent bid to avoid transparency.
Despite an appeal of UF’s decision not to turn over email records — by hiding behind FERPA, which does not apply in this case — the public university’s administrators refuse to budge, raising questions about, and demanding oversight of, such decisions.
“University of Florida administrators are attempting to bend federal law to their will to avoid turning over public records in an apparent bid to avoid transparency and withhold public records from the public,” said Young America’s Foundation Chief Communications Officer Spencer Brown. “YAF will not allow administrators to evade accountability and lawmakers in the Sunshine State ought to shine some extra light on the University of Florida to ensure they know what’s going on at state institutions and get to the bottom of why public employees want to hide their conversations about student activists.”
After Helm requested a meeting with then-University of Florida President Ben Sasse to discuss needed changes to UF’s system of funding student organizations, she later discovered that UF employees outside of Sasse’s office had read her letter.
Curious to know who had spread her letter around among administrators and what they were saying about her proposal to improve UF’s funding system, Helm filed a public records request to obtain the public university employees’ emails discussing her letter.
The University of Florida’s General Counsel ruled such email records “directly related to a student” and responsive to Helm’s request were “student records” under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) — then refused to turn over any communications related to Helm’s letter.
In an email message to Helm, the office of the university’s general counsel insisted UF “does not disclose and provide copies of confidential student records in response to a public records request” and stated that FERPA “provides a student with the right to inspect and review her records, but does not provide a right to a copy, except under certain circumstances not present here.”
The general counsel allowed Helm to view the responsive records in-person in an office, but prohibited her from making any copies or taking screenshots of the records.
Helm appealed UF’s decision to withhold the records, arguing that 1) an email mentioning a student is not a record protected by FERPA and 2) university emails discussing her letter to Sasse are not the kinds of records protected by FERPA, but the general counsel’s office rejected her appeal.
According to the statute, the University of Florida is not prohibited by FERPA from releasing the directory-type information contained in the records requested by Helm. The law defines “directory information” — which “would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed” — as “the student’s name; address; telephone listing; electronic mail address; photograph; date and place of birth; major field of study; grade level; enrollment status…dates of attendance; participation in officially recognized activities and sports; weight and height of members of athletic teams; degrees, honors, and awards received; and the most recent educational agency or institution attended.”
“In my four years at the University of Florida, we had issue after issue with our Student Government funding,” recounted Helm. “Now that we have proposed solutions that will help all students experiencing these issues, we saw nothing done by our university officials. It is no surprise to me that instead of complying with the FOIA request and helping us solve these student issues, university staff is playing games,” she emphasized. “We will continue to fight back.”
The records requested by Helm would have included her name and email address — permitted for release under FERPA as outlined above — as well as whatever internal conversations public employees at UF were having about her suggestions to improve the student organization funding system. If there’s nothing untoward going on behind the scenes, why wouldn’t the University of Florida turn over the records responsive to Helm’s request?
Notably, YAF prevailed in a federal lawsuit against the University of Florida in 2017, also dealing with funding for student organizations, after it was discovered that leftist student groups were being funded disparately compared to conservative groups. The resulting changes from YAF’s legal action against the University of Florida ensured equal access and prohibited viewpoint discrimination in the funding process.
For additional information or to request an interview contact YAF Chief Communications Officer Spencer Brown via [email protected].
