\n<\/p>\n
The Education Department sent a message to colleges and universities nationwide Thursday: Any that use data released this year by a massive student voting study risk being labeled violators of a federal law protecting student privacy, and suffering financial consequences for it.<\/p>\n
The move\u2014and the department\u2019s new investigations into the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement\u2014could impact college student participation in this year\u2019s midterm elections. In a statement, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that \u201cAmerican colleges and universities should be focused on teaching, learning, and research\u2014not influencing elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a letter to institutions Thursday, Frank E. Miller Jr., director of ED\u2019s Student Privacy Policy Office, wrote that \u201cthere are a number of enforcement options available to the Department when\u201d a higher ed institution \u201cis not in voluntary compliance with FERPA,\u201d the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Miller said those include \u201cwithholding further payments, issuing a cease-and-desist order, and recovering funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the same day, ED announced investigations into Tufts University, which houses the study, and the National Student Clearinghouse, a partner in the study. Miller\u2019s letter told colleges and universities that any of them that intend to use any \u201creport or data\u201d from the study \u201cthis year are advised to wait to do so until the Department has completed its investigations.\u201d It\u2019s unclear when those investigations will be done.<\/p>\n
The study\u2019s website says it\u2019s a \u201cstudy of student political engagement in higher education institutions and a service to over 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities that can use it to understand and improve their student voting rates.\u201d It says it freely provides institutions student voter registration and turnout rates, and it\u2019s \u201cthe nation\u2019s only objective study of college student voting and registration.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a news release, ED cited \u201cmultiple reports alleging that the process of compiling\u201d the study\u2019s data \u201cinvolves illegally sharing college students\u2019 data with third parties to influence elections.\u201d It went on to say that reports submitted to Miller\u2019s office \u201callege that students\u2019 personally identifying data is shared not only with the NSC [National Student Clearinghouse] and participating institutions, but also with political organizations which aim to influence elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
ED says its investigations \u201cseek to identify how the student data is being shared between colleges and universities, Tufts, the NSC, and any other third parties,\u201d and \u201cwhether institutions are following all informed consent requirements under FERPA.\u201d<\/p>\n
The department didn\u2019t respond to Inside Higher Ed\u2019<\/em>s questions Thursday about what \u201cthird parties\u201d or \u201cpolitical organizations\u201d identifiable data is allegedly being shared with. Miller\u2019s letter says \u201creports suggest Catalist and L2, third-party vendors, share national public voter registration and voting records they collect to be used for the\u201d study, but it\u2019s unclear whether these are the companies ED is concerned about. The companies didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment Thursday.<\/p>\n As far back as 2023 and 2024, the conservative-leaning news outlets The College Fix<\/em> <\/em>and The Epoch Times<\/em> <\/em>wrote articles on reports by a group called Verity Vote that mentioned those vendors and raised broader concerns that the study violates privacy and has a political purpose. In 2024, Mike Lee, a Republican senator representing Utah, took issue with the student voting study, which his office alleged in a news release \u201ccompels institutions to hand over students\u2019 FERPA-protected data.\u201d He introduced a bill that would \u201cprohibit students\u2019 private information from being shared without their consent for voter registration drives,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n The study says on its website that when an institution signs up for it, \u201cthey authorize us to receive their institution\u2019s enrollment data, which is deidentified and matched to publicly available voter files. The process and the data are absolutely nonpartisan and protective of student privacy.\u201d It said it \u201cnever receives identifiable student data or learns who students vote for.\u201d<\/p>\n A Tufts spokesperson, in response to Inside Higher Ed\u2019<\/em>s requests for an interview, said in an email that \u201cwe are in receipt of the Department of Education\u2019s letter and are currently reviewing it. We have no additional comment at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n The National Student Clearinghouse, in an emailed statement, said it \u201cwill cooperate fully with the investigation\u201d and it will \u201ccontinue to uphold our commitment to compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs a politically neutral 501(c)(3) nonprofit, our mission is to provide trusted data and services to the education and workforce communities, supporting educational success nationwide,\u201d the Clearinghouse wrote. It said the study \u201cis designed to encourage student civic engagement rather than advance any political agenda, and we are presently reviewing our involvement to ensure the continued integrity and impartiality of our services to institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n The study says that its data is used to \u201cimprove civic learning in and out of the classroom\u201d and provides recommendations to \u201csupport civic learning on campuses.\u201d The move comes as the Trump administration is pouring tens of millions of dollars into so-called \u201ccivics\u201d schools at universities, which many faculty have denounced as conservative-biased beachheads in academe, and into what it calls civil discourse efforts at universities. This week, the president repeatedly called for his party to \u201cnationalize\u201d voting, which is generally overseen by states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Education Department sent a message to colleges and universities nationwide Thursday: Any that use data released this year by a massive student voting study risk being labeled violators of a federal law protecting student privacy, and suffering financial consequences for it. The move\u2014and the department\u2019s new investigations into the National Study of Learning, Voting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1111,393,272,489,3578],"class_list":{"0":"post-43867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-data","9":"tag-student","10":"tag-tells","11":"tag-universities","12":"tag-voting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}