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Students’ rights are a complex, contentious and highly relevant issue. However, despite the fact that these rights are vitally important to college students and the ways they may conduct their lives, many are unaware of how their attendance at a university may impact their freedoms and protections.
Starting in elementary school and continuing through high school, young students may not experience the same rights and privileges afforded to adults. Because of their youth, schools may, for example, share pertinent information with students’ parents without student permission. However, many common high school experiences like this one disappear once an individual reaches college and is granted more freedom and independence.
As is the case throughout elementary and secondary education, a great deal of students’ rights issues depend upon the status of an institution — i.e., whether it is a public or private college or university. When selecting an institution for higher education, most students do not consider this factor, but it nevertheless has a great impact upon students’ rights and lives.
Talking about “rights” in the United States is usually a conversation of constitutional rights, such as freedom of speech, religion and expression and privacy rights. These rights protect students from the government. As state-funded institutions, public colleges and universities act as extensions of the government, and students’ constitutional rights protect them from infringement by their school.
“So if Millersville University passes a rule that restricts speech, it would be similar to if that rule were passed by the city [of] Lancaster,” associate professor of communications and Interim Director of the Pre-law Program Dr. Matthew Telleen said in an email interview.
On the contrary, private colleges and universities, such as Elizabethtown College, act like private businesses, which can often pass rules and restrictions affecting constitutional rights without repercussions. For example, private businesses, including private colleges, may ban the use of certain speech or require visitors to be searched for entry. At various colleges, this can look like a ban on offensive speech, a prohibition on carrying firearms on campus or the ability of the college to search student housing.
“The theory is the individual is not required to do business with any particular company, and enters into those transactions [with a college] voluntarily,” Telleen said in an email.
Therefore, students at private colleges may decide to leave the institution at any time if they feel their rights are being violated.
However, this difference can also have positive effects. The distinction between public and private schools is what allows private schools to declare religious affiliations.
As actors of the state, public schools violate the separation of church and state in establishing a religious affiliation; private schools do not experience the same.
Therefore, for students for whom a religious college is an important resource, this distinction becomes significant.
Many students do not consider this issue when selecting schools, though, because it rarely leads to negative consequences. Public and private schools often function in similar ways, and most students do not consider private colleges to be a “business” they can easily leave — because, in most cases, even private colleges do not infringe on students’ constitutional rights. Just because private colleges are legally allowed to limit free speech or expression does not mean that they do.
This is not to say that students’ rights at private colleges and universities are not protected. All college and university students, regardless of age or place of enrollment, are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which limits the information schools may share and release. FERPA applies to all institutions that receive funding from the U.S. Department of Education, under which private colleges fall.
Under FERPA, schools require written permission from students to release educational records and information, according to the U.S. Department of Education website. Schools are allowed to share “directory information,” or simple facts such as name, address and phone number, without permission, on the grounds that the sharing of this information generally does not impact student well-being, according to the National Association for Colleges and Employers website.
The information protected by FERPA falls under the category of “educational information,” including transcripts, grades, GPA and academic evaluations. This means that third parties may not access this information without permission of the student. Exceptions to this include sharing of records when a student transfers institutions and disclosure of information in emergency situations.
Student rights are often overlooked, but they are hugely important. Constitutional and FERPA rights represent just a small sample of the rights afforded to young people that can be impacted by their college or university enrollment.
