A lot of lousy federal legislation was passed in 1974, the year Nixon was twisting in the wind. One of the statutes enacted that year was the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The law requires that school officials and faculty keep most information about students private. For that reason, conferences between professors and parents are a thing of the past at most colleges. Discussing how well or poorly the student is doing would, you see, invade those privacy rights that famously emanate from various constitutional penumbras. (That’s a reference to Justice Douglas’ opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut.)
In last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, John J. Miller, well known to NR readers and now director of the journalism program at Hillsdale College, had an excellent article about the benefit of such conferences at Hillsdale. Hillsdale does not have to comply with FERPA because the college has done what it takes to remain independent — it doesn’t take any federal money.
Just as with so many other areas where the feds have interfered with a mandated, nationally uniform policy (e.g. standards of proof in sexual assault cases), this is one where individual schools should be free to make up their own minds. If some schools think it best to have a policy of keeping everything about students under wraps, fine. Some parents would no doubt think that a good reason for Sue or Bill to apply elsewhere.