Colleges Can Decide What to Tell FBI About Foreign Students, Registrars' Group Says By MICHAEL ARNONE
A letter that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sent colleges requesting certain information about their foreign students has prompted the Association of American College Registrars and Admissions Officers to remind colleges what data they do and do not have to give federal investigators. In a statement on its Web site, the association argues that the FBI is violating a federal law that protects student privacy, by asking institutions to give out information that legally requires a court order.
The FBI contends, though, that it is doing a necessary job within legal limits. "What we're doing is consistent with the law," said Paul Bresson, a spokesman for the bureau. "There is nothing that prohibits us from asking for this kind of information."
Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or Ferpa, institutions have the right to decide for themselves what information is available without a court order, said Shelley Rodgers, associate director of public relations and communications at the registrars' association. Colleges also must give students the right to decide whether they want any of their information to be made available.
Colleges feel they are in a bind because they want to cooperate with law enforcement, but have to follow the federal privacy law, said Ms. Rodgers. "They've tied our hands because they have framed their request in a way we can't respond."
The FBI believes that it is asking for publicly available information that does not require a court order, said Mr. Bresson. "We're expecting whatever they're willing to give us," he said. The agency realizes that each institution can decide how much to reveal, he said, and that academic institutions also have lawyers whose advice they can follow.
The November 4 letter asks institutions for help in the fight against terrorism by assisting the FBI to identify counterintelligence agents and terrorists. To do that, the agency wants institutions to supply information about their foreign students, specifically "names, addresses, telephone numbers, citizenship information, places of birth, dates of birth, and any foreign contact information" for the past two years.
The letter specifically mentions the federal privacy law when it states that the law "does not prohibit an educational institution from releasing a student's place of birth, citizenship, or foreign-contact information." The letter goes on to say, referring to another law that Congress passed last year in the wake of September 11, that the USA Patriot Act "has further granted educational institutions authority to release information to the federal government for use in combating terrorism."
The letter "interprets the law in a way we've never seen it interpreted before" in the 28-year history of Ferpa, said Ms. Rodgers. The letter assumes that the FBI can request information on citizenship and foreign addresses that would normally require a court order to release, she said. It also interprets the USA Patriot Act in a way that would allow the FBI to acquire that data without a court order -- which the Patriot Act currently requires, she said.
Becky Timmons, director of government relations at the American Council on Education, agreed. "The letter is noteworthy for what it leaves out," she said.
More bluntly, she added, "The FBI is trying to do what the USA Patriot Act prevents and Ferpa has long prevented."
Ms. Timmons worked on the educational-rights provisions in the Patriot Act, which include privacy protection for students. Specifically, she said, federal law prohibits law-enforcement officials from collecting information about large classes of people according to gender, nationality, or race, if the data are not needed for an investigation into a particular incident or crime.
In its statement, the registrars' association reminded its 10,000 members that any release of restricted information, without a student's consent, requires a subpoena. It also suggested that all officials on a particular campus should coordinate all on-campus contact with law-enforcement officials to ensure that privacy laws are followed.
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UMass Role in Federal Agents' Questioning of Iraqi-Born Professor Upsets Faculty By SCOTT SMALLWOOD
Professors at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst are upset about the university's role in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's questioning of an Iraqi-born professor for his reportedly anti-American opinions.
A campus police officer, working with FBI agents, questioned M.J. Alhabeeb, a professor of resource economics, in late October. They said that they were following up on a tip, and that the questioning lasted about five minutes. Mr. Alhabeeb, now an American citizen, said in an interview that he rarely discusses politics or foreign policy and that the agent told him the tip came from somebody connected to the university's public-access cable-television station, where he serves on the board.
"To me personally, it was no big deal," said Mr. Alhabeeb. "What bothers me is that the monitoring should not be directed toward anyone because of their name or their color or their ethnic background."
But after other professors learned of the questioning of Mr. Alhabeeb, they were especially concerned about the university's connection to the FBI. Barbara Pitoniak, a university spokeswoman, confirmed that Barry Flanders, a UMass police detective, has been working with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. "He is first and foremost a university employee, and the campus's police needs come first," she said.
Ms. Pitoniak said that she did not know what percentage of the detective's time is spent with the FBI, and that when he is working with the bureau, he reports directly to the FBI, not to the university's police chief. She added that such multi-jurisdictional task forces are not unique and that university police officers have participated in others, such as groups investigating drug offenses.
Neither Mr. Flanders nor Barbara O'Connor, the campus police chief, responded on Monday to messages from The Chronicle.
About 75 professors met last week to discuss the issue. Some of them are meeting with Chancellor John V. Lombardi today, and others are planning a public forum and intend to give faculty members information about what their rights are if they are questioned by the FBI.
Dan Clawson, a sociology professor who organized the meeting, said professors were wary about close ties between the FBI and the university. "There is a campus employee being paid by the university, doing we don't know what, monitored by no one on campus, and engaged in activities that can have the effect of chilling freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry."
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Web Site Lists Professors Who 'Indoctrinate' Students By THOMAS BARTLETT
A new Web site allows students nationwide to anonymously accuse their professors -- who are named -- of political bias. Some of those professors are calling the site "silly" and "cowardly."
The site, NoIndoctrination.org, which was announced last week, was started by Luann Wright two years after her son took a writing course at the University of California at San Diego that she found objectionable. "All the essays they had to read were race-related and I thought that was a little odd for a writing course," said Ms. Wright, a former high-school science teacher who now designs science curriculums. She also disliked a reference to men as "phallocrats" in one of the essays.
Linda Brodkey, a professor of literature at the university, designed the course in question, though she did not teach the class that Ms. Wright's son took. "We tried very hard to make a course that would introduce students to the range of issues they are expected to form opinions about," Ms. Brodkey said. The course did not endorse one particular opinion over another on any issue, she said.
Ms. Brodkey was involved in a similar controversy more than a decade ago at the University of Texas at Austin. A writing course she helped revise was deemed to have a liberal bias by some critics, including the National Association of Scholars. (See an article from The Chronicle, November 21, 1990.)
Ms. Wright's Web site allows students to rate the perceived level of bias in a professor's lecture, reading list, and class discussions as "noticeable," "objectionable," or "extreme." It also permits students to post accusations anonymously, a practice Ms. Wright defends because identifying students would invite retaliation from professors, she says.
Professors can write rebuttals to students' accusations, though so far only one has been posted. That statement was from Geoffrey Schneider, a professor of economics at Bucknell University. In his rebuttal, he called the student's accusation of bias "a typical comment by a hyper-sensitive conservative without a fundamental grasp of the material."
Another professor listed on the site, Theodore J. Lowi, a professor of government at Cornell University, said he had no plans to post a rebuttal. "I won't dignify it with a response if they don't identify themselves," he said. The posting accuses Mr. Lowi of "subtle liberal evangelism."
Robert D. Crutchfield, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington, is accused by an anonymous student of "thoroughly indoctrinating" students in his "Introduction to the Sociology of Deviance" course. According to the student, the professor believes that criminals must be rehabilitated rather than punished -- a mischaracterization, according to Mr. Crutchfield. "What embarrasses me is that this student so completely misunderstood what I was teaching on these topics," he said. He said he does not plan to respond on the site.
Nearly all of the postings complain about a pro-liberal bias among professors. But Ms. Wright, who calls herself "as middle-of-the-road as you can get" politically, said she is against bias of any kind. "I would be just as appalled if a professor were describing abortion as baby killing," she said.
Ms. Wright added that unlike the Web site Campus Watch, which lists professors that it believes have an anti-Israel bias, her site is not concerned with a professor's research. "I'm worried about what goes on in the classroom," she said. "I feel we're doing our students a grave disservice when we have this sort of education where students take a writing course that is really more of a social-programming course."
Ms. Wright said her site is not affiliated with any other organization and is supported by donations.
One posting accuses Cecilia Rao, who is listed as a professor at Barnard College, of putting too much emphasis on "the plight of the low-income family" in a course called "Poverty and Income Distribution." But according to a college spokeswoman, no one by that name teaches at Barnard and the course does not exist.