Just days after the Supreme Court handed a major victory over to those fighting for gay marriage, a gay marriage public records fueled lawsuit filed against UCF is heating up.
A hearing for the lawsuit was cancelled Thursday following an emergency motion after UCF released approximately 15,000 e-mails and accidentally released some that UCF’s lawyer admitted are private, including at least one student’s confidential education record protected by the FERPA privacy law. UCF is now backtracking, and according to documents uncovered by KnightNews.com, they are asking the plaintiff to destroy all copies of the protected records and hand back the 4GB flash drive of e-mails to UCF.
“Dear all, until we are able to discuss, Work through and hopefully resolve this issue, We respectfully request that you refrain from producing or publishing any of these documents to anyone else. Thank you for your professional courtesy here,” UCF’s counsel, Rick Mitchell of the GrayRobinson law firm, sent to the petitioner’s legal team.
In a response to UCF’s request to return the records, the plaintiff denied any of the records were private and simply asked the court to deny the motion to return the records. Even then, the plaintiff cited Downs v. Austin, “once the State has gone public with information which could have previously been protected from disclosure under the Act’s exemptions, no further purpose is served by preventing full access to the desired documents or information.”
John Becker filed the lawsuit against UCF seeking access to public records relating to a research paper by professor Mark Regnerus. Some are saying that the research paper suggests gay marriage could have negative effects towards children. Becker, who said the paper has been criticized for conflicts of interest, had his public records request denied on April 1, 2013.
UCF declined to comment on the situation because of the ongoing legal action.
