But I want to focus on only one sliver of this case—one ugly, frightening sliver. I guess we can thank the university’s administration for shining some daylight on the legal quirk that I’m about to talk about, because otherwise it might have stayed hidden.
The Oregon administration accessed the rape survivor’s therapy records from its counseling center and handed them over to its general counsel’s office to help them defend against her lawsuit. They were using her own post-rape therapy records against her.
It was a senior staff therapist in the counseling unit who blew the whistle on the administration’s actions. In her public letter, she sounds horrified that the work she thought was protected by medical privilege could be violated in such a fashion.
The university came firing back, arguing that because the rape survivor had asserted a legal claim of emotional distress, Oregon was entitled under, of all things, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act to use her medical records to defend against her suit.
