New chancellor has the chance to get transparency right

A panel discussion last week explored media coverage of the University’s football probe, and further illuminated South Building’s problematic philosophy that transparency is a mere privilege, to be dismissed out-of-hand through the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The panel was held March 11 at N.C. State University to mark “Sunshine Day,” an annual celebration of open government.

The panel discussion was hamstrung from the get-go, as the University declined to send a representative. Former athletic director Dick Baddour spoke only from personal experience, and not on behalf of UNC.

Still, the discussion’s focus on the relationship between the media and the University during the last few years exposed a troubling lack of openness.

This issue came to a head in 2010, when a coalition of eight media groups, including The Daily Tar Heel, sued the University for all records related to the NCAA investigation. A two-year legal battle ensued, resulting in the release of many of the records, but without the assurance that future lawsuits can be avoided.

Outgoing Chancellor Holden Thorp has insisted that the University’s resistance to media inquiries has been due to the institution’s dedicated compliance to FERPA, a federal law meant to offer students a base level of privacy surrounding their education.

But FERPA has been used nationwide as a legal catchall to stymie the inquiries of media organizations — no matter how unrelated to “education” they may be.

This is a clear perversion of the law’s purpose.

Erring on the side of compliance with FERPA comes at a cost. The University’s lockdown mindset was one reason the series of scandals sparked by the NCAA probe dragged on for so long.

It should be noted that no college or university has ever been financially penalized for violating FERPA, which became law in 1974.

But Baddour said in the discussion that he was most concerned not with compliance, but with protecting students’ privacy — a desire that has been voiced by current UNC leadership.

The commitment seems genuine, but it is misplaced when records at issue have nothing to do with a student’s academics. The University fought tooth-and-nail to protect a handful of athletes’ parking tickets.

Administrators should be reminded of the words of Judge Howard Manning, who largely rebuffed UNC’s FERPA claim. “FERPA does not provide a student with an invisible cloak so that the student can remain hidden from public view while enrolled at UNC,” he wrote in a 2011 order.

Thorp, who was in the audience of the “Sunshine Day” panel but declined to speak, has largely been wrong on transparency. The installation of a new chancellor represents a perfect occasion for UNC to get its position on transparency right.

UNC has an obligation to conduct its business with the public looking on; the media’s job is to ensure the University is meeting that obligation.

University administrators like to play up UNC’s public status. But they too often fail to recognize that this carries with it responsibilities that might be inconvenient for them, but are responsibilities nonetheless.