The College Fix

College Republicans at ASU question legality of campaign’s access to student data, demands transparency from school 

The Kamala Harris presidential campaign texted 70,000 Arizona State University students and a total of 150,000 students statewide, urging them to vote for her. Now, students, a professor, and a state representative are demanding answers.

College Republicans at ASU announced on Twitter and Instagram that the Harris campaign texted “students from [all] Arizona universities,” including ASU, Northern Arizona University, and the University of Arizona.

“If Kamala Harris has access to all of Arizona college students’ phone numbers, what ELSE do they have?” the group stated.

The posts included a screenshot of the text ASU students received, which reads:

Hi Sun Devils, it’s Kamala Harris. I wanted to remind you that the deadline to register to vote in Arizona is Monday, October 7. Thanks to record turnout among college students in 2020, I am Vice President of the United States Today.

Tim Walz and I are the underdogs in this election, but student voters could make the difference. We need your support to win. As an Arizona State University student, you can register and vote in Arizona. Your vote is your voice and your power. You must not let anybody take your power from you.

Carson Carpenter, president of College Republicans at ASU, told The College Fix in a phone interview that the group confirmed the report by analyzing enrollment data from the universities involved and speaking with many students, most of whom received the text.

They found that recent transfer students did not receive it, possibly because they are not yet in the university databases. Additionally, parents and alumni received the texts, suggesting the actual number of recipients could be higher.

“We’re going to be submitting a [Freedom of Information Act] request very soon to understand how that information was supposedly public,” Carpenter said. He said ASU needs to do a better job protecting student data.

The students are requesting all communications related to the decision to provide student contact information for political use.

Students want an answer “on how it’s public information, and we haven’t heard anything from these universities clarifying that,” the student said.

An ASU spokesperson, who asked not to be named, told The Fix in an email statement: “Under Arizona Public Records Law, ASU’s records are public unless there is a specific confidentiality requirement.”

“While most student records are confidential under [the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act], FERPA exempts from confidentiality ‘directory information,’ which includes contact information,” he stated.

“ASU is therefore required to release student directory information upon request,” the spokesperson stated.

MORE: Students’ private FERPA data given to third-party voting firm

Carpenter argued that while the school has been “citing a part of FERPA that says it’s public data…they’re not citing the part where that public data is exempt when it’s political campaigns that have partisan charged messages.”

Further, the university stated that students can opt out of making their information public, but Carpenter claimed students “had no knowledge” of this.

Owen Anderson, a philosophy and religious studies professor at ASU, also took issue with the school’s explanation for the texts.

“The ASU web page is not clear” about what is considered public information, he told The Fix in an email statement.

Anderson pointed to a section of the “Grades and records” page on ASU’s website, which states the school has a policy allowing the sale of enrolled student directory information exclusively through University Registrar Services. If a student has a FERPA directory hold on their record, their information will not be included in these sales, ASU states.

“ASU cannot be allowed to simply dismiss this as a public information request,” Anderson said.

The professor also said it is unclear why students only received a text from Harris and not from both campaigns. The texts “could be taken by students as an endorsement,” he said.

“All year, ASU has been bringing in high profile Dems like Pelosi and Emhoff with no similar high level pro-Trump speakers,” which “gives the optics of bias even if that is not intended,” the professor said.

The issue is both “a privacy matter and a bias matter,” which “are incredibly important problems and need to be addressed by ASU right away,” he said.

College Republicans at ASU also posted a screenshot of a letter Carpenter sent to the school, stating the student body is “deeply alarmed” by the texts that appear to use student information. The letter demands a “clear explanation” for the texts.

It also argues that the campaign’s use of student data for partisan messaging violates FERPA, breaches ASU’s confidentiality policies, and undermines trust. The letter points to the school’s privacy policy, which states that student information can only be used for educational or safety purposes. 

In response to the incident, Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman announced he will immediately launch a “full Senate investigation” into the “major security breach,” in a post on X Sunday.

It’s illegal “for political campaigns to access personally identifiable information (PII) of public university students within AZ,” Hoffman wrote.

Professor Anderson is suing ASU over the school’s required diversity, equity, and inclusion training for faculty, The State Press reported.

“The lawsuit references a state law that says public funding cannot be used for ‘training, orientation or therapy that presents any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex,'” according to the State Press.

MORE: Voter company silent on whether it deletes private student FERPA data

IMAGE: College Republicans at ASU/Instagram

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