UPDATE Friday 8pm: We have received a response from Ms. Cook indicating she has been working with federal education officials to ensure UCF’s compliance with the FERPA privacy law.
The law is quite complicated and it’s common for oversights to be made when applying it, as is evidenced by situations nationwide.
Ms. Cook indicated she’s going to review the information and guidance she’s obtained as it relates to SGA records such as video and e-mails. After working with federal officials, Ms. Cook said SGA video records at issue are not protected by FERPA. It was so complicated, however, some of the records were taken down while the issue was sorted out.
KnightNews.com management has stated from the beginning it hopes to engage in professional dialogue and mediation with the University on these issues to come to a fair resolution without legal action. Now more than ever, UCF appears it may be ready to take a second look at its policies in a good-faith manner and do the same.
The outcome could have a positive impact across the state for open records advocates, according to citizens in similar disputes just made aware of these developments. Check back for updates and more info on these major developments.
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Earlier Story:
It seems that ever since KnightNews.com has launched, UCF Associate General Counsel Youndy Cook has interpreted a federal student privacy law to the most stringent standards when it comes to releasing information needed to cover how $15 million of student money is spent in UCF’s Student Government Association.
However, when it comes to her work giving legal advice to SGA, Youndy Christine Cook, who graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 1996, according to her linkedin profile, seems to have overlooked what would appear to be flagrant and blatant violations of FERPA, the federal privacy law, based on a KnightNews.com analysis of repeated written exchanges on the topic with her.
For example, in February, Cook insisted the University could not provide access to UCF President John Hitt’s e-mails in electronic format in order to comply with FERPA, therefore requiring KnightNews.com to pay hundreds of dollars before UCF would print the e-mails to respond to a public records request under Florida’s Public Record Law. As is often the case, when an Orlando TV station made a similar request and notified Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum’s Deputy General Counsel Alexis Lambert, Cook backed down and UCF agreed to release the records to the TV station in electronic format, and only print out the few e-mails that needed to be redacted. She never bothered to tell us she was wrong before — and even denied we had the right to get records in electronic format to our attorney months later, in writing.
Cook has insisted that all personally identifiable information, such as student names or voices, needs to be redacted from virtually any record maintained by UCF before it’s released under Public Record law, because she seems to always consider such records protected education records. However, when it comes to SGA posting videos that clearly show identifiable features of students’ faces, their voices and likenesses, the standard of protecting privacy rights UCF has asserted for records UCF doesn’t want public isn’t followed — at least not until KnightNews.com asks repeated questions.
According to SGA President Mike Kilbride, Cook had carefully reviewed some videos SGA posted that KnightNews.com carried, and drew up some legal correspondence to threaten KnightNews.com to take the videos down. The videos showed students faces and voices, and there were no FERPA waivers on file for the students portrayed in what appears to be an “education record,” considering Cook’s standards on other records KnightNews.com has requested.
UCF has refused to provide KnightNews.com with clarification as to why they redact names of paid, state employees serving as SGA politicians from SGA e-mail and paper records, while at the same time displaying videos filled with regular students’ faces and voices who had not thrust themselves in the public arena in the same way, which suggests a waiver of a right to privacy.
Because UCF has refused to provide clarification when asked in a professional manner, KnightNews.com has made a public records request for a copy of one of the former SGA videos, so UCF will be required by law to explain its legal reasoning when responding to our request. UCF risks breaking the law by taking too long to respond. The official records request was made Tuesday, after the earlier request for clarification was not answered.
In the meantime, UCF has started requiring FERPA waivers from students before SGA posts videos of them and has removed a link to the old videos we questioned. KnightNews.com sent an e-mail on the topic to several leaders in Tallahassee and the Federal Department of Education making them aware of the situation. We’re waiting to hear back from a DOE spokesman.
Youndy Cook did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
KnightNews.com will continue updating this major developing story as we get more information.
See some of the e-mails we sent on this topic below:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: KnightNews.com
Date: Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 9:45 PM
Subject: URGENT: APPARENT FERPA VIOLATIONS HAPPENING NOW
To: Christa Coffey
Cc: Vikki.Shirley@flbog.edu, Alexis Lambert
Dear UCF Officials:
As you know, we’ve had extensive correspondence since late last week about our concerns regarding SGA posting videos containing personally identifiable information on this website (http://sga.ucf.edu/extra/), which SGA officials told us on the condition of anonymity, for fear of retaliation, that was set up at the direction of SGA President Mike Kilbride.
In particular, we pointed out to several of you last week, that we didn’t understand how UCF could justify redacting student names and personally identifiable information from e-mails used by BOT member & SGA President Mike Kilbride to transact official state business, while at the same time SGA maintained a website with videos showing clear facial features and voices of students, who had not waived their FERPA rights.
Tonight, we are getting flooded with reports from students who say they are being forced to sign a FERPA release form giving up their rights to privacy, in order for SGA to post videos of these students on http://sga.ucf.edu/extra/ . The event is still happening now, and we’re told students have been given no notice they’d be forced to sign this form in order to perform on stage. Of course, we know from having covered the event in the past — before SGA banned us and threatened us with a cease and desist letter — that students worked for weeks on these skits and dances. We’re told by multiple sources that with only seconds until their performance, students were told by UCF professional staff: “You have to sign it to go on stage!” Clearly, one or two students missing from the dance can ruin the entire production and cause the team not to place. In light of that, many students complained to us saying they are being forced to sign this under duress, and they really do not want to waive their FERPA rights.
Additionally, we’ve received other reports that students don’t have enough time to sign it before they have to go on stage, so people are forging the FERPA release forms for their friends, in order for them to all get on stage and compete. We understood that FERPA requires written consent from the person waiving their FERPA rights — and others can’t waive FERPA rights on behalf of a friend at the University level.
We know from dealing with UCF Associate General Counsel Youndy Cook in the past, FERPA is extremely important to UCF. Recently, she has construed it to include blocking the names of paid UCF employees who happen to be students from our public records requests, despite our initial belief that they had waived rights to privacy by thrusting themselves into an SGA role, where open meeting laws apply.
In light of this information, and on behalf of all the complaints we’ve received from students, we are wondering if you will take down the videos until you can be assured every student waived their rights to FERPA before their records are posted online. Additionally, we understand the other videos on the site from previous events are being displayed without any FERPA waivers at all. We are wondering if you will take those videos down as well, until this matter can be sorted out.
We will be working on a major story about this tomorrow, so we copied the DOE spokesperson on this e-mail to get his or her take on the situation, and how FERPA should apply. If you need names of students who are upset about their FERPA rights being treated in this way, I can check and see if they’d be comfortable with me sharing them with you. Feel free to share any information that can enlighten us further on this matter. One of our reporters will be following up tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Andrew Stein, Director
Knight News Inc.
An e-mail we sent to Chief Beary yesterday:
Dear Chief Beary,
As you’ll recall from previous e-mails, UCF student journalists
working on behalf of KnightNews.com, a website devoted to covering UCF
student news which is published by Knight News Inc., a Florida
non-profit educational corporation, were wrongfully threatened with
arrest by members of UCF’s Student Government Association (“SGA”) for
lawfully covering the SGA election, which determined who at UCF would
exercise control of UCF’s SGA, and its $15 million in public funds
defined as activity and service fees, UCF mandates students pay and is
allocated pursuant to Section 1009.24(10)(b), Florida Statutes.
During conversations with our previous attorney, and in subsequent
e-mail exchanges, the University admitted it was inappropriate for its
paid agents of the state to kick our cameras off a public sidewalk
where other media is always allowed to tape, and where photo evidence
we obtained showed a competing campus news organization was gathering
news during the time we were told by those paid UCF employees that the
police would come and arrest us if we continued taping.
During the last incident, UCF’s Associate General Counsel Youndy Cook
ignored our e-mails seeking intervention during the beginning of the
several day period in which we were banned from covering the election.
Not until our previous attorney came to stand by our side at the end
of the election were we allowed to gather news and cover the election
without interference.
During our previous dispute with UCF Associate General Counsel Youndy
Cook, we made a public records request for President John Hitt’s
e-mails in electronic format. Despite our assertion that we were
entitled to the records in a cheaper, electronic format, we were
denied such access to those records and told we’d have to pay hundreds
of dollars for them to be printed. Weeks later, we found out WFTV made
a similar request, and after Ms. Cook denied access to electronic
records in the same manner, WFTV requested the intervention of the
AG’s Deputy General Counsel Alexis Lambert, who apparently persuaded
Ms. Cook her legal analysis was not correct, and released WFTV those
records electronically.
Clearly, UCF has shown a pattern of mistakes when it comes to our
rights as journalists, and has even admitted to them after the fact.
Even their lawyers have been proved wrong, time and time again. We are
writing you, and copying Mr. Means, to make you aware of a situation
tonight which could result in a UCF Student Government official again
threatening us with arrest. We are hoping you can look at the facts
now, and come to the conclusion this is a civil matter, and instruct
your officers not to arrest our student journalists tonight when they
videotape an event in the UCF Arena.
Following conversations UCF has had with our attorneys, and through
our own correspondence with UCF, the bottom line answer we got via
e-mail from UCF was that no “entity” other than Student Government can
videotape a Skit Knight performance by students, in the UCF arena,
tonight. UCF has refused to define what an “entity” is to them.
However, it is our understanding that Section 1009.24(10)(b), Florida
Statutes, is construed to mean that no activity & fee paying student
can be turned away from such an event. There is no provision in
statutes saying a fee paying student can be turned away if he or she
is videotaping.
This gets me to the purpose of my e-mail. We need to know if fee
paying students that happen to do some work for KnightNews.com will be
subject to arrest for videotaping during Skit Knight tonight, so long
as no one from KnightNews.com is taping that is not a fee paying
student.
We will forward you additional correspondence related to our position.
We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Andrew Stein, Director
Knight News Inc.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: KnightNews.com
Date: Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 10:52 AM
Subject: FERPA fumbled – request for comment (not legal correspondence, so feel free to respond)
To: Youndy Cook
Ms. Cook – We’re working a story on your interpretation of FERPA and how it seems to apply differently n different situations. Specifically, we’re talking about how you said we couldn’t have Pres. Hitt’s e-mails in electronic format, and then released them to WFTV after discussions with the AGO. More recently, we’re told you have instructed SGA “don’t give them anything!” and told them to redact not only the names of paid students in SGA, but the positions they have as well, even though this was not the standard practice in the past. Of course, we understand you also have advised them to redact student names from e-mails, even of student leaders. Mike Kilbride has made it clear to us, in writing, the only reason his name appears unredacted at times, is because he chose to waive his rights on that specific occasion. Most recently, you had been keenly aware of the SGA videotape dispute of KD Shakedown and ZTA Lipsync, as Mr. Kilbride told us you wrote some threatening documents to try and get us to take down SGA videos of the event we feel we were within our fair use rights to use. This morning, after we recently public records requested one of the videos because a response from UCF ignored our question about how the videos didn’t have to be redacted but the e-mails did, SGA has removed the ZTA and KD videos from the drop down menu of its site. However, the Homecoming videos are still up, despite correspondence from us notifying you that we got reports not everyone has signed the FERPA release form, people have forged the signatures, and people were forced to sign the documents under duress. Our question to you: Why does it appear you didn’t advise SGA to take down the KD Shakedown videos during your legal analysis on copyright law? Did you not realize it would be a violation of FERPA, if we interpret your legal analysis correctly?
