Does SB-1341 prohibit educational research entirely? The text of SB-1341 bill (just introduce to the US Senate) is available here. Summary As far as I understand it, if this bill were to pass, researchers would be unable to connect student-level data to any other outcomes (e.g., academic, social, etc.). Student-level data can be test scores and survey data about any number of topics (e.g., learning strategies, student mindsets, etc.). The bill would also prohibit collecting video or audio data, which can be helpful for identifying important aspects of teaching behaviors, student-teacher interactions, student interactions with peers in small group learning formats, and so on. It also appears to restrict research based on standardized test results. Basically, the bill seeks to severely restrict educational research. My question: Would this bill prohibit educational research entirely?
From my reading of the bill, and the manner in which it would amend the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the changes do not prevent educational research, but rather, ensures that constraints are in place to prevent the identification of individual students as a result of that research. It also requires a student's parents to consent to such research and/or video monitoring. The data is required to be aggregated prior to any kind of public release, and this is already common practice in most research programs.
Yes. This is infringement. This infringement might be excused by a &quot;fair use&quot; defense but it probably isn't. At a very small scale tailor to a very specific educational program, for example, for just members of a thirty person English class that they are currently taking, it might qualify as educational fair use. But I get the impression that the contemplated translation project is far more ambitious than that. The underlying content of the events reported in the news are not protected by copyright, but the language used to report those events and any translations of that language, is protected. The only reliable way to solve it is to get permission to do so from the holder of the copyright of the source of the new reports you are translating.
The protection lies in the fact that these sorts of restrictions are expressed in state laws, and states are Constitutionally forbidden from denying to any citizen the equal protection of the law, or from interfering with religion. The First Amendment, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, forbids states from making any law impeding free exercise of religion, or having the effect of establishing a state religion. This means that any law that forbids people of any religious denomination (including atheists) from holding any office (elected or not) under any level of government is unconstitutional. See Torcaso v. Watkins. Moreover, Title VII's protected classes are also (with the exception of sex) suspect classes under the Equal Protection Clause. A state or local government may not pass a law discriminating against a suspect class unless it is a narrowly tailored law which is the least intrusive way to achieve a compelling state interest. In practice, that means a state can't pass a law discriminating on the grounds of national origin, race, or religion. Sex is a quasi-suspect class; government discrimination on the grounds of sex must further an important state interest in a way reasonably related to that interest; again, in practice this will tend to rule out laws saying "no women can be elected to this post." The Americans with Disabilities Act actually does not exclude elected officials. It defines "employee" as "an individual employed by an employer." The Equal Pay Act doesn't apply to elected officials, but again, sex is a quasi-suspect class. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act also excludes elected officials, and this is the one case where a state really could discriminate -- the applicable test is whether the law is rationally related to a legitimate state interest, which is not an especially high bar.
Generally, no. Legislatures pass laws. The fact that someone else knows more about the thing they're passing laws about is utterly irrelevant -- the power to make laws is given to the legislature, not to experts. If the legislature thinks experts should make the rules on something, they can delegate (this is why the FDA approves medicine rather than Congress), but the legislature of a state generally has the power to pass any law that is not unconstitutional. Your analogy to paper money is a poor one: that's a federalism thing, not an expertise thing. Congress has established a system of paper money, and states can't interfere with that. It's not that the Fed thinks paper money is good, it's that Congress said paper money shall be a thing. That could stop a state from banning an FDA-approved drug; however, since marijuana is illegal under federal law, it would be odd to conclude that banning it at the state level as well is preempted. Legislators aren't inherently experts on anything (except being elected). That doesn't matter. They have the authority to pass laws, even if those laws directly go against the views of people who are recognized experts in the area. You appear to think there must be a judicial remedy against bad policy. You would be wrong. The role of the courts is not to decide what policies are good or bad; they are concerned only with what is legal. Deciding what policies are good or bad is a matter for the democratically elected representatives of the people, or for the people themselves in states with ballot questions. It is not the job of the courts.
The matter is not clear-cut (and the university lawyers are presumably relying on that fact). The bold part and following overstates the situation, especially the unconstrained &quot;publishing anything&quot; edict. You can publish whatever you want that the university doesn't have a legal interest in. The clause that says &quot;If you have co-authors or co-researchers you must ask their permission before publishing, and include their names&quot; is true, and defines a limit on their control. If you don't have co-authors, it's none of their legal business. (There can be issues regarding publishing an affiliation, so let's put that on hold). They can, however, prohibit you from claiming an affiliation with Pod U, unless you submit your works to some internal vetting organization. This requirement should, however, be stated somewhere perhaps in the rules of the graduate school (not just the student handbook); or the other legally-enforceable rules. You should also pay attention to the exact words that they use. You must ask permission to publish work done with a co-author (that's a fact: it's a standard requirement in universities). It is important to be sure that the information you publish is correct (clearly that is not in dispute). They are allowed to ask you to get X's approval. The First Amendment does not prohibit them from urging you to follow a course of action.
The exact text of 34 CFR § 99.31 makes it clear that the determination of who has &quot;legitimate educational interest&quot; is left up to each educational institution to establish: (a) An educational agency or institution may disclose personally identifiable information from an education record of a student without the consent required by § 99.30 if the disclosure meets one or more of the following conditions: (1) (i) (A) The disclosure is to other school officials, including teachers, within the agency or institution whom the agency or institution has determined to have legitimate educational interests. Moreover, 34 CFR § 99.7 requires each institution to notify students of their particular definition of &quot;legitimate educational interest&quot;: (a) (1) Each educational agency or institution shall annually notify parents of students currently in attendance, or eligible students currently in attendance, of their rights under the Act and this part. ... (3) The notice must include all of the following: ... (iii) If the educational agency or institution has a policy of disclosing education records under § 99.31(a)(1), a specification of criteria for determining who constitutes a school official and what constitutes a legitimate educational interest. (bolding mine) As far as whether this has ever been tested at law, I'm not sure. There are a few cases mentioned in this legal review article from 2003, though the author calls the existing case law at the time &quot;meager&quot;: Not surprisingly, schools' interpretations of the legitimate educational interests exception have been at issue in some FERPA controversies. In Krebs v. Rutgers, for example, a university attempted to characterize its disclosure of students' Social Security numbers to campus post office personnel as a &quot;legitimate educational interest.&quot; The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey enjoined the practice, noting that &quot;the regulations do not suggest, and it is far from clear, that distribution of social security numbers ... serves a 'legitimate educational interest.' &quot; In contrast, in Achman v. Chicago Lakes Independent School District No. 2144, a Minnesota federal district court held that the supervisor of the school's detention room had a legitimate educational interest in accessing the disciplinary records of a student she monitored. In another FERPA case from 1987, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals found that a school official who requested students' education records to defend against her pending criminal charges did not have a legitimate educational interest in the records.&quot; Finally, in another instance that some commentators have deemed &quot;an egregious example of when disclosure serves no legitimate educational interest,&quot; a substitute teacher told her class that a student had HIV and classmates should not share lip balm with him. Earlier in the article, the author makes basically the same point you make in your question: Thus, if a professor, campus employer, or other school official can contrive a colorable &quot;legitimate educational interest&quot; for accessing a student's education records, the official may obtain the data without the student's knowledge or consent. ... Because policies are not uniform, systems administrators are largely untrained, and schools are not held accountable, school discretion in defining legitimate educational interests may undermine student privacy.
A private school in the US is not bound by the 4th Amendment requirement for searches to be &quot;reasonable&quot;, just as parents do not need a search warrant to search your room. Instead, limitations would arise from contract law. This typically means that per the contract whereby you can go to that school, you agree to certain things (as do they). This may or may not include the power for a teacher to conduct a surprise inspection. It just depends on what is said in the contract regarding dorm room searches. Typically, adjudication of this type of matter is left to parental outrage rather than courts, unless there is a clear violation of the contract terms.
Yes, this is legal, unless Richardson, TX has a specific local law making it illegal. In the US, discrimination is legal, unless it discriminates against one or more specific enumerated classes. Under federal law, and as far as I am aware, Texas law, students are NOT a protected class. As such discrimination against them is legal, unless Richardson, TX or its incorporating county have a specific law or regulation prohibiting it. Incidentally, age is generally not a protected class, and when it is a protected class, it is generally only illegal to discriminate against people above a specified age, not below. Note that discrimination happens all the time, over a variety of factors, that many people don't even consider discrimination. For example, many colleges and universities discriminate on the basis of GPAs for acceptance to various programs; this is legal. In the past, many colleges and universities discriminated against potential students on the basis of sex or race, which is now illegal.