n. (abbr. FERPA)a United States law (20 USC 1232g) enacted in 1974 governing the privacy of student recordsElston 1976, 22Despite some potential administrative problems, FERPA serves an appropriate end by effectively halting real or potential abuses to individual rights without damaging the essential administrative and research value of student records.Barritt 1986, 265The privacy statute having the greatest impact on university record-keeping is the Family Educational and Privacy Rights Act, affectionately referred to as FERPA or the Buckley Amendment.Greene 1987, 572The main impact of FERPA at Carleton was to increase access by students to their own records.Skemer and Williams 1990, 545The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) has made campus records policies concerning student records necessary.Samuels 1992, 36The most significant control over student records is imposed by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), the purpose of which is to protect the rights of students by controlling the creation, maintenance, and access to educational records.Chute and Swain 2004, 213In strong reaction to the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, Congress enacted legislation to strengthen individual privacy rights. The Privacy Act of 1974 gave individuals the right to review and challenge federal files about themselves and to restrict the exchange or disclosure of personal information. That same year, Congress enacted FERPA to guarantee students and parents (of students under the age of eighteen) access to students’ educational records, which would enable them to challenge their contents. FERPA also prohibits unauthorized third-party disclosure without parental (for students under eighteen) or student consent. Commonly referred to as the “Buckley Amendment” after its principle sponsor, Senator James Buckley of New York, FERPA applies to “all institutions receiving federal funding and encompass[ing] all levels of education from pre-kindergarten through the doctorate level.”Perrone 2006, 137Transcripts, of course, fall under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), which restricts access to student records. Although FERPA does not specify a time when these records can be made public, many universities and colleges restrict transcripts for 75 years. Transcripts and other student records have the potential to become resources for educational or demographic studies by future generations.Behrnd-Klodt 2008, 134Applicable to all institutions funded by the federal Department of Education, FERPA was designed to prevent schools from making excessive and inaccurate disclosures of personal information. The law restricted access to most information in student records only to students and parents of minor students; provided procedures to review, challenge, and correct information; and sharply limited lawful disclosures to third parties.Pyatt 2008, 213Few archivists would argue with the intent of FERPA to protect personally identifiable student information, which excludes directory-type information. To alert potential researchers to this concern, many archivists have adopted statements outlining the access limitations to student records.Lawrence 2016, 39Many a time I have heard both historians and educators say that FERPA, for instance, applies to all student records for all time. Yet, FERPA does not apply to the records of the deceased. It also does not apply to private schools that do not receive federal funding. State laws, of course, may cover the records of deceased students, and archivists and historians certainly should find out.Smith 2019, 5Many items in the digital collections deliberately predate 1898, which was the 120-year threshold for copyright. Another consideration were regulations and best practices related to the privacy of student and faculty records (FERPA, HIPAA), which made digitization of more recent materials problematic.Anderson-Zorn and Long 2021, 15Under FERPA’s requirements, educational institutions cannot release any information concerning a student’s performance, conduct, or academic work without the student’s written permission. However, there is considerable ambiguity in the FERPA language as to exactly what types of materials constitute such information, resulting in widely varying interpretations among educational institutions.
