Osborn v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, 2002 WI 83, 254 Wis. 2d 266

Summary

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin reviewed whether the University of Wisconsin System was required under Wisconsin's open records law to disclose information from student and applicant records. The court held that FERPA protects personally identifiable information in education records, but does not prohibit disclosure of non-identifying information such as aggregated or redacted admissions data. The court further held that the University must redact exempt information when necessary to comply with an open records request and may charge the actual, necessary, and direct costs of doing so.

Holdings

1. FERPA prohibits the nonconsensual disclosure of personally identifiable information contained in education records, but it does not prohibit disclosure of all information contained in those records. A custodian may deny a request under FERPA only when the requested information would make a student's identity traceable, subject to directory-information and other statutory exceptions.
2. The public-policy balancing test favored disclosure because the requested information was not personally identifiable and Wisconsin law presumes that public records are open. This was not an exceptional case warranting denial of access.
3. Wisconsin Stat. § 19.36(6) requires a public-records custodian to provide information subject to disclosure and delete or redact information not subject to disclosure before releasing the record.
4. The University could not avoid its statutory duty to redact merely because compliance might be burdensome. The University could charge the requester the actual, necessary, and direct costs authorized by the Open Records Law.

Questions Presented

1. Whether FERPA prohibits disclosure of admissions information from education records when the requested information, after redaction, is not personally identifiable.
2. Whether Wisconsin's public-policy balancing test permits denial of access to non-personally-identifiable admissions information despite the statutory presumption of openness.
3. Whether Wisconsin Stat. § 19.36(6) requires the University to redact or delete nondisclosable information and provide the information subject to disclosure.
4. Whether the University may refuse the requests on the ground that redacting information would effectively require creation of a new record.

Disposition

reversed