The university is requesting attorney fees after winning a lawsuit filed by its student news site that accused the school of redacting public records and shutting reporters out of student disciplinary hearings.
The University of Central Florida correctly withheld records that were protected by a federal education privacy law, a judge ruled this week in a public records lawsuit brought by student journalists at the university.
Responding to a public records lawsuit filed earlier this year, the University of Central Florida told a judge this week the school cannot provide student journalists unredacted records relating to Greek fraternities’ disciplinary hearings because the records are protected under a federal education privacy law.
A student-run online news organization at the University of Central Florida has filed a lawsuit against the school alleging violations of Florida’s public records and open meetings laws.
While journalists at six student newspapers expressed frustration over unresolved and unsolved cases of newspaper theft, at least one newspaper theft incident ended in punishment this spring for the student found responsible for the theft.
Even by higher-education standards, the University of Central Florida is obsessively secretive, even with information that might help its students protect their own safety. UCF and its combative lawyers habitually resist disclosure of records that readily would be made public anywhere else, insisting that their interpretation of federal privacy law -- an interpretation shared by almost no… Continue reading UCF's fight to conceal fraternity wrongdoing grows lonelier with enactment of South Carolina disclosure law
In Kentucky and Florida, two universities seem to be exhausting all options to keep public records from their student papers – including suing their students.
The SPLC and five open-government advocacy groups weighed in behind student journalists with Orlando-based Knight News in the University of Central Florida's appeal of a court order declaring student government expense reports to be public records.