Subpoenas alert universities

Students participating in anti-war demonstrations at university
campuses across the country have had a tense two weeks. The federal
government first issued then retracted a subpoena to Drake
University in Iowa, requesting the university produce the names of
students who took part in an anti-war conference held at the
school.

The federal government withdrew its subpoena request Feb. 10,
but some educational officials are worried it might signify more
government intrusion into higher education in the future.

Sally Frank, a law professor at Drake University, said even with
the government withdrawing their subpoena requests, the fact that
they asked for information should send up a red flag for the
education community.

“The other question that rises out of this is will other
universities be subpoenaed in the future, especially since this
subpoena could very easily not have become a public matter,”
Frank said.

She added that she notified the National Lawyers Guild, the
organization which sponsored the anti-war conference, about the
subpoena the same day she received a copy of it.

The next day a judge issued a gag order on the university,
forbidding Drake officials to talk about the incident.

The subpoena, issued Feb. 4, was connected to a Nov. 15 peace
forum on the Des Moines-based Drake campus. The following day, an
anti-war demonstration was held in front of nearby Camp Dodge,
which houses units of the Iowa Army National Guard.

During that demonstration, 12 activists were arrested for
trespassing. Federal investigators said last week their
investigation was related to the trespassing and that they had
issued a separate subpoena calling for the protesters to appear
before a grand jury.

Brooke Benschoter, a Drake spokeswoman, said though the federal
government was not requesting specific student records, it was
still requesting private student information, which the school was
reluctant to release.

“They didn’t request particular student records,
only wanted information on who attended the meeting at Drake; but
we knew there was a very good chance that there were students in
it,” Benschoter said.

Drake wasn’t the only school to attract government
interest in recent weeks.

On Feb. 9, two Army officers came to the University of Texas Law
School where they requested information on a conference that had
been held on campus Feb. 4, concerning Islam and the law. The
agents requested a roster of attendees and sought to interview the
organizer of the event.

The National Lawyers Guild issued a statement Feb. 17 condemning
the actions of the federal government in both Iowa and Texas.

“It appears that the government is stepping up
surveillance of innocent activity at academic institutions,”
the statement read.

“Peace movements in universities were investigated back in
the ’50s and ’60s,” Frank said. “But the
actions in Iowa and Texas signify a renewed governmental interest
in student movements.”

James Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild
chapter in Los Angeles, also emphasized the possibility of the
federal government investigating events at other universities.

“We expect to see it happen in other institutions around
the country. If I were a large institution with political groups on
campus, I might anticipate finding myself in the same
position,” Lafferty said.

“I should think that they might be knocking on
UCLA’s door as well, and I hope that the school will respond
by fighting the subpoena,” he added.

Joseph Mandel, vice chancellor for legal affairs at UCLA, said
the university takes its students’ First Amendment rights
seriously but that the school also has a responsibility to aid the
national government in protecting national security.

“We have an obligation to disclose information, but we
will not do so if we think it will violate FERPA or the
Constitution,” Mandel said, referring to the Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law protecting the
privacy of student education records.

Drake University received an outpouring of support from many
educational institutions nationwide following the subpoena
requests.

“We have heard from lots of universities asking how we
would handle it because it does impact the educational
community,” Benschoter said.

“The popular sentiment was that Drake should work hard to
preserve the values of the free exchange of ideas and the
discussion of issues, even if some of them might not be
popular,” she added.