When is a photo or video of a student an education record under FERPA?Īs with any other “education record,” a photo or video of a student is an education record, subject to specific exclusions, when the photo or video is: (1) directly related to a student and (2) maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution. Please contact me if you need assistance with such matters. and I frequent represent and advise clients regarding public records and open meetings. And that mistake enabled the newspaper to access redacted information, which was likely done legally and lawfully. In this case, the School Board did a poor job of protecting sensitive information if a simple copy/paste revealed it.
#Redacted face free#
It is not the job of a free and independent news media to protect documents from disclosure it’s the government’s. Of course, many media advocates believe the judge’s wrath should have been directed at the government agency that failed to properly redact information that the court had determined should not be public. She may be angry that information she ordered redacted got out, but her words seem to indicate that she doesn’t think there is much that can be done about it under the law. The editor-in-chief of the Sun Sentinel says, “We feel strongly that we didn’t break the law and have no regrets for publishing the school district’s history with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooter.”Ī court brief also named 30 media organizations siding with the Sun Sentinel, including CBS Broadcasting, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.Įven the judge, in that same court session, told the newspaper’s attorney that, “Legally speaking, you may be okay.”
It’s called prior restraint and it’s highly offensive to the constitution.ĭespite the judge’s obvious anger, will the reporters or paper ultimately face legal consequences?
This, of course, would be unlawful as the First Amendment does not give government, including judges, the power to decide what editors decide to publish or broadcast. Then a lawyer for the newspaper had a tense court appearance, where one of the judges who originally approved the redacted report sided with the school board and threatened to censor the newspaper by deciding herself to “specifically write word for word exactly what you are and are not permitted to print” in the future. The Broward School Board filed for contempt of court against the Sun Sentinel, saying the newspaper violated the orders of the court. This additional information detailed a number of ways that the school district failed to follow laws for disabled students and essentially left Cruz without support for more than a year leading up to the attack.ĭeciding it had a duty to report on these additional details-because they tended to show the school district had failed in important ways-the newspaper published an unredacted version of the findings, saying they believed the information was “of the utmost importance to our community”.
#Redacted face pdf#
Anyone with PDF and Microsoft Word software could remove the redactions. However, after that initial report was released, a Facebook user alerted the Sun Sentinel newspaper to the fact that the redactions were not permanent and could be removed, making it possible to read portions of the report that were supposed to be confidential. The judge on Cruz’s case agreed that a redacted version of this report could be made public. When the investigation report was prepared, news media organizations-fulfilling their function to report on government operations and effectiveness-pushed to obtain copies of the report. Will Sun Sentinel Face Consequences for Revealing Redacted Info on Nikolas Cruz?Īfter the Parkland shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, there was an investigation into how effectively the school district provided counseling and education services to shooter Nikolas Cruz in the months leading up to the horrific crimes he is charged with-murdering 17 students.
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