As colleges push employees to retire early, student journalists find documents elusive

Offering early-retirement buyout packages to high-paid senior employees is an increasingly common way for cash-strapped colleges to cut costs. But students trying to cover those buyouts have met with stiff (and legally questionable) resistance to disclosure of who qualifies for the payouts. 

Nontraditional focus: Student newspapers grapple with a shifting demographic

With added responsibilities and differing life experiences, nontraditional students — a growing population — often feel they are not well represented in their student newspaper. When nontraditional students join the newspaper staff, however, they are often able to broaden the organization’s news coverage.

U. of Oklahoma president orders release of parking ticket records after student paper joins editor’s suit

The University of Oklahoma’s president announced Wednesday the institution will release parking ticket records, reversing course after OU administrators and lawyers maintained for more than a year that the citations were exempt from disclosure under the federal student privacy law.

TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Journalists requesting public records from colleges are being treated like dogs. This Sunshine Week, it’s time to unleash some shame.

A federal privacy law meant to safeguard student grades, transcripts and disciplinary files continues being misapplied to obstruct public accountability, even where no legitimate privacy interests are at stake.Exhibit A is the University of Oklahoma's stubborn insistence that parking tickets are "confidential education records" under FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Okla. university settles lawsuit over funding for Christian paper

Ricky Thomas and James Wickett were denied funding for The Beacon OU, their newspaper that provides ''news from or with a Christian perspective,'' because a school policy prohibited the use of student fees for ''religious services.'' The students claim the policy was enforced when the student government, which allocates student fees, considered their request for funding.