February 4, 2010

Mr. Scott A. Kelly

Deputy General Counsel

The Texas A&M University System

200 Technology Way, Suite 2079

College Station, Texas 77845-3424

OR2010-01756

Dear Mr. Kelly:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 369352.

Texas A&M University (the "university") received a request for e-mail correspondence between a named individual and two university offices and a list of open records requests made to a named individual during a specified time period. ⁽¹⁾ You state that the university will release some of the requested information. You state the university is withholding some information pursuant to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA"), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g. ⁽²⁾ You claim that portions of the submitted information are excepted from disclosure under section 552.137 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. ⁽³⁾

Section 552.137 of the Government Code requires a governmental body to withhold the e-mail address of a member of the general public, unless the individual to whom the e-mail address belongs has affirmatively consented to its public disclosure. See Gov't Code § 552.137(b). The e-mail addresses at issue are not a type specifically excluded by section 552.137(c). See id. § 552.137(c). Moreover, you inform us the university has not received consent for the release of the e-mail addresses at issue. Therefore, the university must withhold the e-mail addresses that you have marked, and the additional e-mail addresses we have marked, under section 552.137 of the Government Code. ⁽⁴⁾ Furthermore, we note that some of the remaining e-mail addresses may belong to students of the university. E-mail addresses of public university students are excepted from disclosure under section 552.137 and must be withheld. However, the remaining information must be released.

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php,

or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General, toll free, at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

Tamara Wilcox

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

TW/dls

Ref: ID# 369352

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. You provide documentation showing the university sought and received clarification from the requestor regarding this request. See Gov't Code § 552.222(b) (stating if information requested is unclear to governmental body or if large amount of information has been requested, governmental body may ask requestor to clarify or narrow request, but may not inquire into purpose for which information will be used).

2. The United States Department of Education Family Policy Compliance Office (the "DOE") has informed this office that FERPA does not permit state and local educational authorities to disclose to this office, without parental consent, unredacted, personally identifiable information contained in education records for the purpose of our review in the open records ruling process under the Act. The DOE has determined that FERPA determinations must be made by the educational authority in possession of the education records. We have posted a copy of the letter from the DOE to this office on the Attorney General's website: http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/20060725usdoe.pdf.

3. We assume that the "representative sample" of records submitted to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision Nos. 499 (1988), 497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding of, any other requested records to the extent that those records contain substantially different types of information than that submitted to this office.

4. We note this office recently issued Open Records Decision No. 684 (2009), a previous determination to all governmental bodies authorizing them to withhold ten categories of information, including e-mail addresses of members of the public under section 552.137 of the Government Code, without the necessity of requesting an attorney general decision.

POST OFFICE BOX 12548, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711-2548 TEL: (512) 463-2100 WEB: WWW.OAG.STATE.TX.US
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