Bradley Pittson Has a Very Strong against Professor Janet Clooney - Case Study Example

In the case, it is very obvious that Clooney had neither informed Pittson of her intention to post his grades to fulosers.com nor obtained Pittson’s consent on the same. In this same vein, Pittson’s grievances meet the threshold for a full-fledged legal case because FERPA applies to educational institutions and agencies that are funded under programs that are run by the US Department of Education and as such, are publicly owned. It is clear that Fargo University as the institution in which the plaintiff learns and the defendant lectures are a state-owned university.

The binding of state-owned learning institutions under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is well enshrined by the US Constitution in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Public Law 79-404, Stat. 237 of June 11th, 1946. The APA Act governs the manner in which administrative agencies of the US federal government should establish, propose and observe regulations. It is therefore important that when Professor Clooney was posting students’ and Pittson’s grades online, she did so, knowing that she is a member of a public institution, and thereby bound by the FERPA Act and all other acts that govern the running of state-owned institutions, courtesy of the APA Act.

Conversely, even the defendant’s claim of ignorance to this fact may not stand in the court of law, since ignorance is no defense in the court of law. That the threshold for this case is widely met is a matter that is underscored by FERPA including the divulging of information on a student’s behavior, status and even school work. FERPA stipulates that before posting a student’s behavior, status, school work or grades, permission must be obtained from an eligible student or the student’s parents, in order to release such information from any student’s education records.