NEWS RELEASE: Student privacy cannot obstruct public access to records of campus sexual-assault cases, SPLC tells N.C. court

UNC-Chapel Hill is misapplying the FERPA student privacy law to withhold public records that could help journalists shed light on the way the university does, or does not, punish students found liable for sexual assault, an SPLC legal brief argues.

Public records deflate myths about "profitable" college athletics

Contrary to the image of college sports as a moneymaker, most athletic programs (even championship-caliber powerhouses) rely on student fees and grants from their parent institutions to make ends meet. Recent investigations by The Washington Post and The Chronicle of Higher Education have captured the enormity of the growing financial burden that athletics imposes on debt-strapped students. 

Get it off your chest? Not anymore. LGBT rights can be debated on T-shirts in schools.

Students' First Amendment right to wear T-shirts with social or political statements is a fiercely disputed issue that regularly ends up in court. A new ruling from Tennessee adds to the consensus that speech on a T-shirt cannot be banned as "disruptive" just because it addresses an issue of social controversy such as LGBT rights.

Appeals court won't apply Hazelwood to teacher trainee's case, instead creates new "professional standards" exception

A federal appeals court sided with the University of Hawaii's dismissal of a student who made unprofessional comments that the university believed rendered him unfit to enter the teaching profession. The ruling appears to lower the bar for the protection of students' speech when enrolled in a pre-professional program, enabling colleges to remove those students even without showing that their speech was unlawful or disruptive.

New federal rule would protect college journalists from IRB demands to review their "research"

Federal rules require "research" involving "human subjects" to be approved by colleges' Institutional Review Boards. Overzealous colleges occasionally have insisted that student journalists submit their surveys or questionnaires for institutional pre-approval, violating basic principles of press freedom. The SPLC is urging the federal government to adopt a proposal categorically removing journalism from the purview of IRBs.