![]() Five students and alumni in the disciplinary records filed appeals to the Washington State Supreme Court in December in an attempt to keep their identities secret. “Universities across the country use FERPA to deny records that should be public, and this decision so far has shown that this isn’t the case and that schools can’t use as an excuse any longer,” Fields, who is now an investigative reporter at The Seattle Times, said.Īccording to Student Press Law Center Staff Attorney Sommer Ingram Dean, this decision puts Baxter, Fields, and Furukawa one step closer to winning their lawsuit. After the journalists filed the lawsuit, WWU acknowledged that the names should have been public.ĭespite this, some students and alumni named in the records filed injunctions in order to keep their identities private. ![]() ![]() But in an October 22 court decision, a Whatcom County judge sided with student journalists, saying the law doesn’t protect the names of students guilty of sexual misconduct and other violent acts.Įrasmus Baxter, Asia Fields, and Julia Furukawa from WWU’s student newspaper, The Western Front, filed a lawsuit in 2019, challenging the university’s claim that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Washington’s Public Records Act did not force them to release the names of students found to have committed sexual misconduct.įERPA was created to protect personally identifiable information in student records - and it actually permits schools to release the names of those found guilty in final disciplinary decisions. WASHINGTON - Western Washington University refused to release the names of students guilty of sexual misconduct in Title IX records they sent to student journalists at The Western Front.
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