The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has accidentally given out federally protected grading and testing information about many of its law school graduates, say attorneys for the school, responding Thursday to a law professor's Freedom of Information lawsuit.
Robert Steinbuch, a recognized authority on Arkansas' open-records laws who has taught at the university for 10 years, sued the school and Michael Schwartz, the dean of the W.H. Bowen School of Law, after Schwartz declined to provide grading and admissions records that Steinbuch wants to use for research.
Steinbuch says he is researching links between race and admissions at the law school.
Steinbuch, represented by attorney Matt Campbell, states he was told federal student-privacy law prohibited the release of the materials because he could use his knowledge of the student body to figure out which student got what grades, according to his lawsuit.
Steinbuch also could determine grades of some minority-group students with the information, the school alleges.
The records he seeks are included in a spreadsheet showing individual test scores, college grade-point average, law school grade-point average, race, gender and age for all students who graduated from the law school and took the bar exam over a seven-year period.
An attorney general's opinion in 2012 deemed those records releasable under the state Freedom of Information Act.
The school has twice provided the information covering other time periods, with Schwartz approving its release in 2013, Steinbuch stated in his lawsuit.
In its filing Thursday, the law school asks Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox to dismiss the professor's suit.
The records the school provided Steinbuch in 2012 complied with the 41-year-old federal law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act known as FERPA, but the 2013 release did not, the school states in its response.
School officials should not be required to provide Steinbuch with the same type of reports this year because they made a mistake in the past, according to the filing.
"Defendants concede that, in 2013, plaintiff was erroneously provided records, which included FERPA protected personally identifiable information.
"Affirmatively, defendants' prior erroneous disclosure does not allow defendants to continue to provide FERPA protected information," attorneys Joan Maxey and Sarah L. James with the school's office of general counsel wrote in their 18-page response to the lawsuit.
The school response also denies accusations by Steinbuch that Associate Dean Theresa Beiner has retaliated against Steinbuch because of the litigation.
His claims of wrongdoing by other professors and administrators are based in part on emails taken out of context and a misleading description of how fellow professors have responded to student concerns about Steinbuch's research, the school's lawyers state.
"Defendants have received complaints from plaintiff's colleagues that students are concerned about plaintiff's grading policy and possible race bias," the filing states.
"From defendants' perspective, these concerns are the result of comments attributed to plaintiff about the nature of his research and the current students attending the law school, which appear in various articles about his lawsuit."
Metro on 12/18/2015