January 10, 2011

Ms. Zeena Angadicheril

Office of General Counsel

The University of Texas System

201 West Seventh Street

Austin, Texas 78701

OR2011-00473

Dear Ms. Angadicheril:

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# 405443 (OGC# 133870).

The University of Texas at Austin (the "university") received a request for all police reports, documentation, 9-1-1 recordings, and surveillance video regarding a specified incident involving a threat by a student against a university professor. You state some of the responsive information has been withheld in its entirety pursuant to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA"), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g. ⁽¹⁾ You also state some of the information has been released. You claim the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under sections 552.101, 552.108, 552.117, and 552.130 of the Government Code. We have considered the exceptions you claim and reviewed the submitted information.

You represent the submitted information was the subject of a previous request for information, as a result of which this office issued Open Records Letter No. 2010-18620 (2010). In that decision, we determined the university may withhold the information you marked under section 552.108(a)(1) of the Government Code. Therefore, as you represent the case related to the submitted information is still pending, we conclude the university may continue to rely on Open Records Letter No. 2010-18620 as a previous determination and withhold the marked information in accordance with that ruling. ⁽²⁾ See Open Records Decision No. 673 (2001) (so long as law, facts, and circumstances on which prior ruling was based have not changed, first type of previous determination exists where requested information is precisely same information as was addressed in prior attorney general ruling, ruling is addressed to same governmental body, and ruling concludes that information is or is not excepted from disclosure).

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,

Bob Davis

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

RSD/tf

Ref: ID# 405443

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. 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.

2. As our ruling is dispositive for this information, we need not address your raised exceptions to its disclosure.

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