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Campus Connection: Student privacy vs. freedom of information

When UW-Madison released some emails of professor William Cronon to the state Republican Party earlier this month following a much-hyped open records request, the university withheld correspondence with students, citing federal privacy laws.

“We are excluding records involving students because they are protected under FERPA,” UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin wrote to the campus community in explaining why some of Cronon?s emails were not given to the state GOP.