Time to tell the whole truth: Redactions show lack of transparency with public and media.

This University has always been a public institution for the people of North Carolina. Such a position demands transparency — which has been lacking in recent years.

In 2010, The Daily Tar Heel and other news outlets sent many public records requests to the University seeking the release of items such as: the phone records of Dick Baddour, Butch Davis and former associate coach John Blake, parking tickets to UNC athletes, names and employment information for athletic tutors and mentors, and all documents related to the NCAA investigation.

When those requests were denied on the basis of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the news sources filed a lawsuit against the University.

Last year the court compelled UNC to release many of those documents. Then attorneys deposed Associate Athletic Director for Compliance Amy Herman about the existence of other documents related to the investigation.

Starting last week, UNC released some of the documents revealed in the deposition.

But the documents the DTH received were heavily redacted and almost entirely useless — a fact displeasing to the media but most especially to the people of North Carolina.

The document leaves out important dates, emails between athletes and tutors, names of individuals involved in the NCAA investigation and more.

The University argues that the information redacted in the newly-released documents is protected under FERPA and releasing such information could lead to defunding by the federal government.

But the original purpose behind the original 1974 act was to protect academic records of students against government agencies — not to defeat public records requests inquiring about misconduct by college employees. Releasing these documents would not violate FERPA.

Even if one violation was made, it wouldn’t lead to defunding.

“If you are found to be in violation, the Department of Education puts you on a plan of correction,” said Frank LoMonte, director of the Student Press Law Center. “If you violate that, then you could lose funding. But to our knowledge, nobody’s even gotten as far as a plan of correction before.”

Former Senator James Buckley, who sponsored FERPA, has publicly said he feared the law has become “an excuse for not giving out any information (universities) didn’t want to give.” In this case and in cases at other schools, that’s exactly what it is.

Students do have a right to privacy. The media has no right to access private information such as transcripts or attendance records. However, UNC has a responsibility to both the public and to its students to disclose any and all involvement in cases of misconduct.

Redactions like the ones presented in last week’s documents seem to suggest there’s more information that UNC doesn’t want the public to know.

The truth has been trickling out in a way that makes UNC look guilty. Telling the whole truth might save face — with the media, but more importantly, with the public.