Miami U. access issue
goes 'round and 'round

Miami University is an unlikely place to set journalistic history.

After all, the Oxford, Ohio, institution -- a place where journalism students are actually English majors, where the primary student paper is published just twice a week and its competitor just once, where the regular journalism faculty numbers just five -- is hardly a Columbia or Northwestern.

Nonetheless, the "public ivy" school has just emerged from a 2 1/2-year court battle that pitted students against administrators, journalists against academics and the First Amendment against the right to privacy. In the end, the students, the journalists and the First Amendment won.

The case began in early 1995 when Jennifer Markiewicz, then editor in chief of the student-staffed Miami Student, began talking with Miami's student affairs staff about ways to obtain information about what goes on in the university's disciplinary system, said Richard Little, senior director of university communications.

By May of 1995, the Miami Student wasn't satisfied with the extent of information it had received, so Markiewicz and another student, Emily Hebert, filed a lawsuit to get access to student disciplinary records for the Miami Student. Markiewicz wanted to compile a database that tracked crime on campus.

"They just did what we taught them to do," said Holly Wissing, director of the News Bureau at Miami. From the beginning, the student editors maintained they wanted only statistics. They did not seek the names of students who had disciplinary records.

But the university didn't consider the Miami Student's request that benign.

It initially resisted providing the disciplinary records for the same reason it stands against the court position now: It feared it will lose some $40 million in student financial aid if it violated the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Under FERPA, educational records are considered private.

"Our argument all along for this, which has been misunderstood, has not been the issue of whether or not this should become public record. The issue is: are these considered private, or what parts are considered private?" said Little, the university's chief spokesperson.

The Ohio Supreme Court answered the university's question. In July 1997, it sided with the students, ruling that disciplinary records are public records, available to anyone.

With the court's decision, the journalistic floodgates opened. Little's office received many calls seeking access to the records. At the same time, universities throughout the country called to learn about the ruling, then braced themselves for similar requests for the disciplinary records.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, a newspaper that focuses on educational issues, was one of the first media outlets to read the state Supreme Court's decision. It requested not only disciplinary records -- but two years worth of student names, as well. In the Cincinnati area, The Cincinnati Enquirer also sought the records. Neither paper has published the data thus far.

According to Little, the Ohio Supreme Court said two things in its ruling. It said the university was correct in "redacting" information -- that is, blacking out data -- that the Miami Student did not request. The paper did not seek names and addresses of students disciplined or dates, times and locations of incidents that prompted the discipline.

But, in something of a contradiction, the court also said disciplinary records are not educational records and, therefore, not covered by FERPA or banned from release by the Ohio Public Records law, Little said.

Complicating the picture further was a letter from the U.S. Department of Education. Responding to the Ohio Supreme Court ruling, the department sent a letter to Miami and other Ohio public universities stating that the ruling was "wrong as a matter of law" and reminding them to "comply with FERPA."

Said Little: "There was a little bit of concern, a threatening tone there. We felt as though we should appeal."

So last fall, the university did just that, appealing the state ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. In early December, the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case, forcing the university to comply with the Ohio Supreme Court's decision and opening the disciplinary records of Miami students of all ages to public and press scrutiny. This would include students in any post-secondary program -- possibly, as young as 15 years of age.

The disciplinary records contain information about any violation -- whether it is against the student code of conduct handbook or state law, whether on campus or uptown Oxford -- for which a Miami student has been cited.

With the court's ruling, a curious reporter need only request records on a certain student, place or time period -- and end up with a story about something as minor as a student disciplined for staying out past his dorm curfew or a tale about something as major as a student arrested for assault after a party. "It might just be that you've violated one of the local rules," noted Little.

The Miami Student, meanwhile, finds itself with access to information for which it has no definite plans.

"We're going to pick up where she left off," current Editor in Chief Melissa Baker said, referring to the student who filed the suit almost three years ago.

But the student paper, which is partly supported by university funds, has not yet decided what information from the records it will seek for a database. And, Baker said, the paper does not have a "formal position on using names."

Philosophically, Baker and the Student stand behind the court's position. "It seemed like the students were being exempt from the law . . . hiding behind (the fact) that they were college students," she said. "If it was any other person -- not in college -- anyone could get the records."

The university has no choice but to accept the court's decision.

"We're trying to set up a system . . . where we have all the records in one public place," said Little, whose office is backed up with requests for disciplinary records and who can now only hope that federal funding doesn't fade.

But the legal wrangling may not be over yet. On Jan. 22, the federal government re-entered the dispute, as the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit in U.S. District Court in Columbus to stop both Miami and Ohio State University from releasing any disciplinary records. The government is challenging the Ohio Supreme Court ruling that displinary records are not educational in nature and, thus, not protected by FERPA.

In response, Miami said it wants a final ruling in the matter.

"We will comply with whatever the law says," said Little. "We just want someone to determine once and for all what it says."

Comings & Goings

Gayle Brown to part-time specialty publications coordinator, Northern Kentucky group, from news editor, Western Hills Press and Tri-County Press; Gina Holt to staff writer, Campbell County Recorder, from freelance work; Tom Embry to sports editor, Northern Kentucky group, from Kentucky Post editorial clerk; Chris Gramke, to Northern Kentucky University facilities coordinator and assistant women's basketball coach, from sports editor, Northern Kentucky group; Juli Hale, to Erlanger Recorder editor, from staff writer.

The Cincinnati Post

Steve Huba, to religion reporter; Kathy Orton, to sports reporter covering Xavier University; Jeffrey Shelman, to sports reporter covering the University of Cincinnati; David Holthaus, to business editor, from work at Anthem Inc. (and formerly Post health-care reporter); Mike Bass, to sports editor, from sports reporter; Mike Tomasik, to assistant managing editor at Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C., from sports editor; Dan Andriacco, to director of communications for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, from business editor.

The Kentucky Post

David Schumacher to editorial clerk, from sports reporter, The Ledger- Independent, Maysville, Ky.; Julie Ralston to reporter, from college graduation.

Everybody's News

EN staff earned an honorable mention in the General Excellence category of the National Newspaper Association 1997 Better Newspaper Contest (weekly papers greater than 5,000 circulation). Bill Furbee, to associate editor, from part- time; Pat Morris to contributing editor, from managing editor.

WNKU-AM

Northern Kentucky University student Lisa Allison to part-time reporter.

Know a great anecdote about a former news staffer's latest career change?

Is a former editor writing a book? Selling insurance?

We'll chronicle those tidbits in "Comings and Goings", a feature that answers the ever-popular question, "Whatever happened to so-and-so?"

Send ideas (or other newsletter items) to OnPress Editor Jeff Tindall, c/o The Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH, 45202. You may also email to jtindall@enquirer.com, phone 513-768-8065, or fax 513-564-6391.