Court Orders Top NC University To Turn Over Sex Assault Data

A state appeals court is ordering North Carolina's flagship public university to turn over the names of students found responsible for rape or sexual assault in non-criminal, campus disciplinary proceedings.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill can't cite a federal student privacy law in withholding the information. University officials said the law blocked it from naming students disciplined for on-campus sexual misconduct.

The Daily Tar Heel campus newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, The Herald-Sun of Durham and WRAL-TV sued, pointing to an exception in the federal law protecting student records.

The university three years ago updated its policies after a federal investigation into claims the school under-reported sexual assault cases in an annual campus crime report to the government.