Professor publicly posts identifiable student grades. Legal?

Question

One of my professor's posts my entire classes' grades on the internet in a way that they are 100% public. No login is required to view. Furthermore, it has our student ID and our Full Name next to the grades. Is this a violation of FERPA?

FERPA: http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

In response to the severity of the offense: partly it is an issue of security, posting my ID with my name. The big complaint that I have is that this file can be indexed by search engines; friends/employers/etc that may search my name will see my grades.

Answer 1

Absolutely illegal according to FERPA.

Answer 2

Yes. From the FERPA statutes:

Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student's education record. However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):

School officials with legitimate educational interest;

Other schools to which a student is transferring;

Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;

Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;

Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;

Accrediting organizations;

To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;

Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and

State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law.


...But NOT to the general public via the World Wide Web.

Answer 3

Save that webpage. Don't just save the link, it will be useless if the information is deleted. Save the page by copying the source HTML into Notepad or Wordpad and saving it. Then you've got evidence.

I don't think publicly posting grades is a big deal. In public school in the 70s, grades were routinely posted in the hall and any visitor to the school could see them. Publicly posting a student's ID with their name is an entirely different matter. Copy that page and then take your complaint to the school president.

Answer 4

Nope, there's a regulation stated as FERPA that announces that instructors cant share pupils documents consisting of grades and such. If she does share grades in public then tell an administrator.