The U.S. Department of Education said Thursday it is investigating reports that Tufts University and an education group shared confidential student data with political organizations to try to influence elections.
The agency said it plans to examine whether Tufts and the National Student Clearinghouse violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in the way they handled data for a national study of student political engagement.
“American colleges and universities should be focused on teaching, learning, and research — not influencing elections,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.
A Tufts spokesman said the school is reviewing the agency’s letter.
The National Student Clearinghouse said in a statement it is a “politically neutral” nonprofit and committed to complying with the federal privacy law.
The study “is designed to encourage student civic engagement rather than advance any political agenda, and we are presently reviewing our involvement to ensure the continued integrity and impartiality of our services to institutions,” the statement said. The group said it will cooperate with the investigation.
Education Department officials did not name any political group that allegedly received the data or provide details on how the information was allegedly misused to influence elections. But the agency linked to a letter to university presidents dated Thursday that said the Biden administration encouraged institutions of higher education to participate in the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement to identify gaps in student registration and find potential groups to register students to vote.
The Education Department noted the study has historically used an exemption for academic studies in the federal privacy law, but the department said its preliminary analysis suggests that the study does not qualify for the exemption.
The investigation appears to be among the latest efforts by the Trump administration to examine potential elections violations. Earlier this week, local election officials sued the FBI after the agency raided a warehouse in Fulton County in Georgia, confiscating election records and ballots. The county has been at the center of conspiracy theories about why President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. In addition, the Trump administration has also sued states to try to obtain voter registration information that is normally confidential.
John Davisson, deputy director for a national privacy group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the federal educational privacy law is a “critical safeguard.” But he was skeptical about this particular investigation given the administration’s previous efforts to obtain voter data and nudge states to purge their voting rolls.
“The idea that this investigation is motivated by a genuine concern for privacy and the integrity of elections is far-fetched,” Davisson said.
Tufts said the study involves 1,000 U.S. colleges that can use the information to improve student voting rates. The Education Department noted that researchers attempted to match basic student information, such as their names, with public voting records that would show whether they were registered and how often they voted (but not which candidates they voted for).
The clearinghouse, a nonprofit based in Northern Virginia that works closely with colleges, offers a variety of data services, including helping employers verify degrees.
Robert Kelchen, professor of education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, said that both conservative states and the administration have previously raised questions about efforts to encourage students to vote, so he thought the latest announcement was “not tremendously surprising.”
The National Student Clearinghouse is the best source for data on college student enrollment, while the Tufts study has the best data on student voting, Kelchen said. Students can opt out of having information from the clearinghouse shared with outside parties, but most probably aren’t aware of that, he said.
Michael J. Hanmer, director of the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland, doubted Tufts or the clearinghouse would have shared the data with political groups.
Hanmer said he tried unsuccessfully to obtain access to the data for his university for an academic study several years ago and was given “a hard no.” He said the university also explained how stringently it tries to protect data on individual students.
“It was very clear to me that this is just not allowed,” Hanmer said. Instead of providing data on individual students, he said, the study provides statistics on registration and turnout. Study results come long after the election is over, he said.
Nationally, college students tend to lean Democratic, but party affiliation varies significantly by type of school and location, Hanmer said.
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