Can public schools solicit donations directly from students? I have a daughter in a public school in California in 1st grade. Her school is getting ready for a walkathon where each student is expected to bring in donations. This strikes me as inappropriate: the children do not have their own funds and therefore should not be solicited. All requests for donations in my view should go to parents. Are there any laws or regulations restricting public (or private for that matter) schools from soliciting donations from 7-year-olds?
It is not prohibited in California under EDC §49011, though your local board could make it prohibited. In-person solicitation of goods or money during school hours is prohibited in NY state, under Regents Rule 19.6, but recruiting children during school hours is allowed.
Students too have freedom of information and expression. The school has no right to interfere with the student's activities outside of school. But is this activity outside of school? If the newspaper is created as part of a student council or a school-supported project group, supervision by a teacher might be appropriate. If the newspaper wants to distribute copies on school grounds, it will need the school's consent. If the name of the newspaper suggests an affiliation with the school, this could affect the reputation of the school which could lead to legal problems down the line (e.g. claims of defamation). Private schools are likely allowed to impose more restrictive rules. While there are legitimate reasons why the school would have to be (or wants to be) involved, it is ultimately not possible for a headmaster to restrict the student's freedoms. There is no legal basis for installing a censor. But a newspaper by students is not necessarily a “student newspaper”. Of course, any newspaper will have to comply with applicable press laws. Ultimately, the exact rules depend on press law and education law in that particular state. Bavaria provides a good online summary of the rules in that state, and Wikipedia summarizes the situation across a few states. Note that some press laws might require the senior editor to have a certain age if there isn't a special privilege for student newspapers.
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/dk/dk091en.pdf is the Copyright Law in English for Denmark. You should probably try to find a Danish version to ensure the translation is accurate. Chapter 2 lists the exemptions from the general rule that you need the copyright owner's permission to use their IP. Unfortunately, the usage you have made does not meet the requirements for private use (s12): digital copies may only be shared among the members of one household, placing them on the web extends beyond your household. It may meet the requirements of educational use (s13) providing that your school has met the requirements for Extended Collective Use (s50). For photographs, this seems unlikely, such arrangements are usually limited to songs and television works. Under Chapter 6b, you are permitted to use "orphaned works", however, this requires that you have made a diligent search for the owners and have been unable to either identify or locate them. Copyright violation is subject to both penal sanctions (fines and in egregious violations imprisonment) (s76) and damages (s83). TL;DR Yes, you could be sued. Yes, the copyright holder would probably be successful. No, it is extremely unlikely they would bother.
Here is an example for Washington state under RCW Ch. 42.56. First, you cannot request &quot;all public records requests&quot;, because (RCW 42.56.080) (1) A public records request must be for identifiable records. A request for all or substantially all records prepared, owned, used, or retained by an agency is not a valid request for identifiable records under this chapter, provided that a request for all records regarding a particular topic or containing a particular keyword or name shall not be considered a request for all of an agency's records. Second, there is no central agency that maintains all records – you would have to make a request of the State Patrol for all State Patrol records, the Department of Transportation for all Transportation requests, Department of Labor and Industries for their records, Ecology; Gambling; Liquor etc. There are numerous private persons willing to take your money to make records requests, but they all seem to be &quot;name-driven&quot;, that is, they get records about a specific person (pursuant to RCW 42.56.080). There is no Department of Central Records to whom you can make such a records request.
Yes, there is legal precedent against this that would only apply to a government employee. First, let's discuss the private sector. In this case, you are a private employee that comes to your place of work and accuses you of "stealing the cookies from the cookie jar" which is a serious criminal offense. They wish to talk and your boss is in the room. You plead the 5th, but your boss says you're fired if you don't talk to the cops. This is legal because you still have the right to refuse to talk, you just lose your job. A private employer has the right to free association, and wants nothing to do with cookie thieves, alleged or actual. However, in the government employ, your boss is an agent of the government. This same situation is different because the government pays the boss and the agent... so in essence the government is saying talk or be fired. This is unconstitutional as the government cannot retalitate against you for your refusal to talk. Generally, in order to talk to you, the investigator would need either a signed Garrity Statement or a Signed Kalkines Statement. The former is a statement saying that they are investigating a wrong doing but you cannot lose your job if you refuse to speak to the investigators, where as Kalkines says you must talk but you are granted immunity for your part in the wrong doing, so long as you make truthful statements. For more on this, check this legal blog. There is also the matter that a false accusation (and let me be clear... this is academic, I'm not saying the accusation in the real life topic is false, nor am I saying that the defense is false... we're merely discussing a possibility) is made to your employer and they do not offer the job on the basis of the accusation alone, this is grounds for defamation actions... and in certain jurisdictions, it's criminal defamation, so there could be jail time. It's interesting you mentioned teachers, because this happens alot. Kids do know that there are certain things that get a teacher fired quickly, so teachers do get the occasional false accusation of sexual assault (I know one teacher who has had multiple accusations over the course of her career). One of the few good things I can say about the Teachers Union is they cover the legal defense of accused teachers. The accusations do get the teacher removed from the class for sometime, but they don't lose their jobs over this matter. It's followed up but the accusation doesn't immediately lead to the teacher getting fired..
The basic authority of university staff is summarized here. What seems to be at issue here is whether you have a property right to "access" to the university, as an alumnus. Legal protection of alumnus rights is pretty minimal, contrasted with student or employee rights. There could be a line in the sand pertaining to whether you've paid for something, or are the privileges that you've enjoyed simple part of a PR stunt? If you pay the university for access to university facilities (borrower privileges, for example) then it would be harder to revoke that privilege. Most universities grant a certain level of added privilege, such as an alumnus email account, without any requirement to pay. (They hope to create some good will which translates into donations). So it would really depend on what the basis is for claiming access to university resources, as an alumnus. There is no general obligation of a university to grant alumni various privileges, but they may have created a reasonable expectation and legal right to such privileges, as part of their advertising: that can only be judged by looking at all of the facts. There might be rules within the university which address alumni, so obviously reading the university rules is important. That is really how you would determine whether the coordinator is overstepping her authority. If the university admits that it no longer has jurisdiction over you, then that might be the end of the case, unless that was an error based on less than the totality of the facts. If an accused completely and irrevocably severs relations with a university, the university would have no power over the accused. If there is still a relationship, or if the severance is revocable (i.e. you can become a student again), the university retains some power over an accused. If a student violates the federal regulations pertaining to sex discrimination, the university could be in trouble if they do not address the situation. If the accused leaves the university for a quarter, that does not erase past acts, so the university could be in trouble if they don't address the situation in case of an intervening term off. Thus a legally-viable option would be for a university to permanently remove (unprotected) relations with an accused – not access to transcripts, because of FERPA, but certainly the right to re-enroll or the right to use the library as an alumnus. Again, though, it would depend on what the university rules say. It is highly unlikely that the coordinator has the authority to find facts and mete out punishment (determine that an accused did the act), and this is usually determined by a committee, subject to approval by higher administration. However, an administrator does have the right to limit an individual's relationship to the university in a manner that protects the university's interest. For example, in the event that a person is accused of sexual harassment, the university can temporarily relieve a person of teaching and advising duties, until the case is resolved and there has been a final finding of fact. In general, universities are very protective of their interests and will absolutely squash anything that they think will get them into legal trouble. All that is necessary is that there be a credible basis for the claim – often, that means simply "an accusation". If a complainant vigorously pursues a case, the university could be in trouble because the law allows punishment (loss of funds) in case of a single past violation of the regulations. Their interest therefore is being sure that they have remediated the situation (the stronger course of action), or the complainant has given up (risky since the complainant can change their mind).
http://www.healthinfoprivacybc.ca/confidentiality/when-can-and-cant-they-tell-others is a pretty good summary. Different rules apply to private practices than public clinics and hospitals. I will assume that the clinic on campus is private. This is a summary of the summary about who your information can be shared with: Health care professionals can share information within your "circle of care". Specifically, they are allowed to assume your consent to this but you can explicitly withdraw that consent. This would include doctors within the same practice. Admin staff can access your information for administrative purposes. Anyone you have authorised them to share it with e.g. relatives, friends etc. The Medical Services Plan for billing and admin If you are unable to drive If there is suspected of child abuse If you are wounded by a gun or a knife If you are a danger to others For your specific questions: I asked about it and they said it's confidential, but confidential to the clinic. Correct, unless you explicitly revoke this. the counselling department can share information with the doctors This is tricker, these people may be either within your "circle of care" or they may be part of the same organisation. Notwithstanding, councillors are not doctors and are governed by the everyday laws related to confidentiality i.e. information given in confidence is confidential and everything else isn't. If you are told the limits of the confidentiality i.e. they tell the doctor, then those are the limits unless you renegotiate them. he would know I only have one kidney? Well you said "the counselling department can share information with the doctors" and this would require the information going the other way i.e. the doctor sharing with the councillor. Even if this type of sharing was OK in general (and I'm not sure it is, see above); the information shared should only be what is required for the councillor to do their job - the number of kidneys you have is probably irrelevant to this. What laws apply to situations like this where confidential information in one entity (medical office) decides to share it without the consent of the patients to another entity (the counselling dept.)? Well, we are not sure there are 2 entities: legally there may only be 1 - the university. Anyway, the laws are the Personal Information Protection Act and common law (Smith v. Jones, [1999] 1 SCR 455)
Firstly, we need to correct some of the terminology in your question. While you are right that what you have linked to is &quot;statutory guidance&quot;, that is not the same as &quot;new legislations&quot;. Legislation means law passed by Parliament, while guidance can be issued by any body authorised to do so by legislation. Guidance may or may not be legally binding depending on what the underlying legislation says. In this case, the guidance is made under Section 551A(1) of the Education Act 1996. Section 551A(3) provides: &quot;The appropriate authority of a relevant school must have regard to guidance issued under this section when developing and implementing a school uniform policy for the school.&quot; This means that the guidance is not legally binding in the sense that the school authority is not obliged to do what the guidance says. However, the authority is legally obliged to &quot;have regard&quot; to it. This means they must consider it and take it into account when reaching a decision. They can depart from the guidance but in that case they should be able to explain and justify their reasons for doing so. A challenge would need to be by way of judicial review and you would need to establish that they failed to have regard to the guidance. A strongly worded letter pointing out their legal obligation under the Act, together with a threat of judicial review proceedings, may be enough for them to take you seriously without actually needing to go to court.