They are words that stop any reporter's questions cold:
"She was removed from the team due to an undisclosed violation of team rules."
Or the more enigmatic:
"We can't reveal why he no longer works for student government; it's part of an ongoing Student Judicial Affairs investigation."
And there goes the story, taking all the facts with it, off into FERPA land.
FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, "protects the privacy of student education records," according to the U.S. Department of Education's Web site.
Schools that receive funding from the DoE (and ASU is one of those) have to comply with FERPA. This means school records can be released only to students and their parents, or if the student is over 18 years old, as most ASU goers are, only to the student.
FERPA is the reason that athletes never are removed from teams (officially) for mouthing off to the coach or for getting arrested; they're always officially removed for "an undisclosed violation of team rules."
Coaches and University officials can't reveal what a student did wrong because that's part of student records, and revealing those is a violation of our old friend federal law.
The law is used often in defense of the right to privacy - the nebulous freedom that the Supreme Court has determined was given to the people via the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Yet nowhere in the text of the amendment ("The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people") does it say that people who commit wrongdoings are guaranteed privacy.
But FERPA is being used to do just that: protect people who have done wrong.
Unless the name of an offending student shows up in police reports, the public usually never finds out what the student did to get kicked out of office, off the team or out of school.
But students have a right to know why another student they elected is no longer serving them, or why one of the football players they watch is no longer on field.
But more than that, the extraneous veil of secrecy FERPA provides should end where public life begins. The flip side of the over-18 rule is that these people aren't kids anymore - and adults, on campus or off, should play in the big league.
Outside the sheltering walls of academia, high-profile athletes, business people and public servants are subject to open-air investigations and close scrutiny, especially in cases of possible wrongdoing.
Figures of public importance on campus should have to answer to the tough questions, too.
