Glossary¶

Quick reference for terms and acronyms used in this case.

Institutions & Parties¶

TTUHSC: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. The medical school in Lubbock, Texas where Kevin Bass was enrolled in the MD/PhD program.
OAG (also: Texas AG): Office of the Attorney General of Texas. The state agency that oversees compliance with the Texas Public Information Act and issues rulings on disputed records requests.
DOE: U.S. Department of Education. The federal agency that enforces FERPA and investigates complaints about education records access.
SPPO: Student Privacy Policy Office. The division within DOE that handles FERPA complaints.
SBS: Student Business Services. The TTUHSC office that handles student accounts, billing, and collection referrals.
Williams & Fudge, Inc.: The collection agency to which TTUHSC referred Kevin Bass's account in December 2025.

TPIA: Texas Public Information Act (Texas Government Code Chapter 552). Texas law requiring state agencies to produce public records upon request, with limited exceptions. Requests must be acknowledged within 10 business days.
FERPA: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. § 1232g). Federal law giving students the right to access their education records. Schools must respond within 45 days.
34 C.F.R. § 99.10: The federal regulation specifying students' rights to inspect and review their education records, including the right to copies in certain circumstances.
34 C.F.R. § 99.32: The federal regulation requiring schools to maintain a log of disclosures of education records to third parties. Students have the right to inspect this disclosure log.
§ 552.269: Section of the Texas Public Information Act allowing requesters to file cost complaints with the Attorney General when a governmental body's charges are unreasonable.

Preservation notice (also: litigation hold): A formal notice requiring an institution to preserve all documents and communications potentially relevant to anticipated litigation. Kevin Bass sent preservation notices to TTUHSC on October 6-7, 2025.
AG referral: When a governmental body asks the Attorney General to rule on whether requested records may be withheld. Also used when a requester asks the AG to rule on an agency's non-compliance.
ORD ruling: Open Records Division ruling. A formal decision by the Texas Attorney General's office on whether records must be disclosed under TPIA.
Cost complaint: A formal complaint to the Attorney General under § 552.269 asserting that a governmental body's charges for records are excessive or unreasonable.

Hearing (in this context): The December 11, 2023 administrative proceeding at TTUHSC that resulted in Kevin Bass's dismissal from the medical program.
Fair hearing: A proceeding with proper procedural protections: advance notice of allegations, access to evidence, opportunity to respond, and a neutral decision-maker.
Education records: Under FERPA, records directly related to a student that are maintained by the school. Includes transcripts, disciplinary files, hearing records, and communications about the student.
In-person inspection: TTUHSC's method of providing FERPA access: supervised viewing sessions where the student may look at records but not copy them.
Responsive records: Documents that match the criteria in a records request. TTUHSC identified approximately 2,000 responsive records for Kevin Bass's FERPA request.

DOC-YYYYMMDD-###: The naming convention for formal documents in this archive. Example: DOC-20251006-001 is the first document dated October 6, 2025.
Thread ###: Email correspondence threads are numbered sequentially. Example: Thread 38 contains the FERPA complaint to DOE.

See also: Documents Index | Correspondence Archive