Solomon Amendment and FERPA
Summary
Solomon Amendment is a federal law that allows military recruiters to access some address, biographical and academic program information on students age 17 and older who have not filed any FERPA restrictions.
The Department of Education has determined the Solomon Amendment supersedes most elements of FERPA. An institution is therefore obligated to release data included in the list of “student recruiting information,” which may or may not match our FERPA directory information list.
Definition - "Student Recruitment Information" or "Solomon Information"
- Full Name
- Address (not defined as directory at IWU)
- Telephone (not defined as directory at IWU)
- IWU Email address
- Age (not defined as directory at IWU, but we provide students age, 17 and older)
- Native, Naturalized or Permanent Resident of the US
- Level of education, or class standing
- Academic major
Procedure for releasing information to military recruiter:
- Under the Solomon amendment, information will be released for military recruitment purposes only. The military recruiters may request student recruitment information once each term for each of the 12 eligible units within the five branches of the service:
- Army: Army, Army Reserve, Army National Guard
- Navy: Navy, Navy Reserve
- Marine Corps: Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reserve
- Air Force: Air Force, Air Force Reserve, Air Force National Guard
- Coast Guard: Coast Guard, Coast Guard Reserve
- The request should be submitted in writing clearly identifying the unit of service requesting the student recruitment information.
- The request should specify whether the information needed is for the current or previous semester.
- All students should be notified once per year of this KB article the and why they are receiving unsolicited emails from the US Armed Forces.
Data must be transferred securely using a service approved for restricted data. The following statement should be included alerting the recruiter to our data requirements: Please ensure all transmission, receipt, storage, use and disposal of Student data is handled in a secure manner in accordance with all applicable laws as well as prevailing industry standard best practices in order to prevent unauthorized third party access. Address, phone, and age are not considered public information at our institution and must be protected.
* Document content referenced from IU informational page on the Solomon amendment