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Dear FERPA Professor,

If grand jury subpoenas require us to not notify students, but we file the request, what do we do if the student then requests to review their records (which would normally include any disclosures we have made)?

Thanks,

Ben Jammin
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Dear Ben,

99.31(ii)(a) of the FERPA regulations addresses this issue. It permits the institution to provide the subpoenaed information from the student’s education record without meeting the usual notification requirement and without recording the facts of the disclosure. Thus, you would not have to record the disclosure. If you do decide to record in accordance with your own institutional policy (or for any other reason), you would not be required to disclose the information to the student under FERPA or, under the terms of the subpoena, be permitted to share the information with the student. You can find the cite for reference on page 161 of the 2012 AACRAO FERPA Guide.

I hope this is helpful in answering your question.

Sincerely,

The FERPA Professor

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AACRAO members, send your questions to the FERPA Professor at connect@aacrao.org.

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