Four Easy Pieces to Balance Privacy and Accountability in Public Higher Education: A Response to Wrongdoing Ranging from Petty Corruption to the Sandusky and Penn State Tragedy

This Article offers four legislative solutions—four easy pieces—to properly balance confidentiality and accountability in publicly financed higher education. It presents (1) a fix to the Federal Student Privacy Act that will prevent it from being misapplied as a defense to proper freedom of information act requests, (2) a bill to require the affirmative disclosure of admission practices at public schools receiving federal funding, (3) a bill that imposes direct costs, through the bankruptcy code, on schools that misrepresent their data regarding graduation and post-graduation opportunities, and (4) a revision of the federal freedom of information act to have it apply to those public schools that receive federal funding.