To Whom it Concerns:
As many of you know, in recent days, heavily edited recordings of our class discussions have been posted on a variety of third-party political blogs and websites. Many of these videos feature clearly identifiable images and recordings of students, whose personal information (including such information as home address) is easily accessed via the UMKC student directory.
A quick perusal of the comments sections on the blogs and websites where these videos are posted will yield a host of threats, attempts to intimidate, and calls for violence and/or legal action against the students and teachers featured. These threats are reactions to opinions that were often not even those of the students or teachers featured, but rather pedagogical explanations of the positions expressed by historic figures in the field of labor relations.
Student records are protected by the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act, and to release those records without consent is both a violation of federal law, and a disservice to one's fellow students and citizens, especially when those records have been doctored in such a way as to engender the violent reaction that can be found on the various websites that are posting them. I would encourage those of you who feel that our privacy and safety should be respected and protected to contact the both the University and the Family Policy Compliance Office of the U.S. Department of Education to let them know you expect these videos to be removed and that you expect the persons responsible for this violation of your privacy to be held accountable.
Sincerely,
Stephen Davis
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