oldyeller said:
txags92 said:
oldyeller said:
txags92 said:
oldyeller said:
PearlJammin said:
Everyone is walking around with a video camera. Need to record this behavior.
Students who do this in the classroom will be in violation of student rules against unauthorized recording, and may face further sanction, which will weaken any legitimate claims they have. Better to file a claim using the proper channels.
Are you sure that is accurate? I would think that a classroom setting is one that would qualify as a place somebody has no right to an expectation of privacy, so unauthorized recording there would not be an issue.
Check out student rule 24.4.18:
Quote:
24.4.18. Unauthorized recording. Any unauthorized use of electronic or other devices to make an audio, video, still frame or photographic record of any persons without their prior knowledge, or without their effective consent when the person or persons being recorded have a reasonable expectation of privacy and/or such recording is likely to cause injury or distress. This includes, but is not limited to, surreptitiously taking pictures of another person in a gym, locker room, or restroom or recording administrative meetings with University officials. If a recording is made that captures a violation of the Student Rules or law, the Student Conduct Administrator may elect not to enforce this section of the Student Rules against the student making the recording.
Classroom discussions count as conversations, and hence carry an expectation of privacy. The rooms may be restricted to only those enrolled in or involved in the teaching of the class, and hence are also not fully public spaces, which buttresses the expectation of privacy upon which the rule depends.
I don't agree at all that what a professor openly says in a classroom would qualify as having a right to an expectation of privacy. You are talking about recording conversations between two students, while we are talking about a student recording a professor talking to the class. The professor has no right to an expecation of privacy, and as long as the student is recording the professor without including video of any students that could allow them to be identified, I can't see how that would violate that rule. Since what the professors are doing are violating an executive order from the Governor of Texas and the stated policy of TAMU, I would expect that the SCA would waive enforcement.
The issue here is that you assume that students' voices may not also be captured, which could be employed in identification, and result in the problems noted earlier. Exchanges between instructor and student also take place in a classroom, and are considered conversations. It appears many here have a narrow focus on this mask issue, in regards to recording, without considering all the abuses that could result by abandoning the existing rule on unauthorized recordings in place to protect academic freedom and avoid disclosure of FERPA protected information. There's a reason for the old maxim "hard cases make bad law."
To the matter at hand, if the individual faculty policies in place can affect a student's grade, they have to be in writing, e.g. on the syllabus. So if there is a classroom policy stating that failure to mask up can impact a student's grade and it isn't on the syllabus, there is already grounds for contesting the policy. Extra credit for mask wearing has been noted as permissible, in order to encourage mask wearing, but faculty who employ these means are supposed to provide comparable opportunities for extra credit to those students who elect to not wear a mask so that no situation arises where students are treated differently academically based upon their mask preference.
You're really stretching on the FERPA issue.
There's no one to enforce anything except the school itself against its own students.
This is why I advocated for clandestine recording and then laundering through multiple channels before using social media to expose the behavior. If professors are doing things outside of what the law allows, then what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
On the subject of FERPA, the school itself would be immune from action and there is no private right of action. The only private right that might exist would be for someone tortuously accessing and distribution protected information. That would be a lawsuit on behalf of someone whose data was released against someone who released protected data. But the problem you run into at that point (from a litigator perspective) is that you only analyzed step 3 in the "should I take this case" rubric.
Step 1 is "is there a deep pocket." These are college kids. Almost to a person they're completely judgment proof.
Step 2 is "what is the damages model." Again, you'd have to prove up that there is some sort of monetary entitlement. Just the expert fees proving that there is a damages model
at all would be significantly higher than whatever dollar amount it spits out.
Step 3 is liability. You might have a case on this one.
One out of three = you're wasting your time.
Instead of trying to make a federal case out of this, it seems like the right play would simply be what another poster mentioned another public university in Texas is doing: telling professors they can't force masks and they can't punish (or reward) for mask related behavior, period. Simple, straight-line-out-of-the-problem solution.
