Under the law, post-secondary institutions are chartered to educate students who commit misconduct and, when necessary, to take corrective disciplinary action. Furthermore, a reported admission without any merit may become public if the Foley Amendment becomes law. The Amendment does not anticipate the very real possibility that a reported but unsubstantiated admission of guilt could nevertheless be subject to public disclosure. For example, if a campus official such as a residence hall director is told by a student that another student has admitted committing a crime of violence and the alleged admission is written down and reported to an individual on a campus responsible for disciplinary actions, the Foley Amendment makes it very likely that colleges would have to release this record even if an investigation into the truth of the reported admission shows it to be false or incorrect. Many states do not allow the release of criminal records of minors.
Many college students are minors.
The Foley Amendment, through state open-records laws, would require colleges to release records of minors that contain admissions or campus findings that they engaged in acts of violence, while simultaneously facing state mandates that prohibit the release of records of the same acts that are handled through their juvenile justice system. The impact of the Foley Amendment will be disparate and non-discretionary. Disclosure of student records is also subject to control by state law, which may define disciplinary records as confidential or define them as public records. Open-records laws vary considerably from state to state. In most jurisdictions, the effect of state laws is mandatory, not discretionary.