Failing Students Wish College Understood the Proper Use of BCC:

Here is a tip to the Financial Aid office of the Univeristy of Kansas, and anyone else out there who sends mass e-mails. In order to keep everyone on your e-mail list from seeing everyone else on your e-mail list, simply put your name in the TO: field and everyone else's name in the BCC: field. BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy, and by design ensures that recievers can not see any addresses in that field - not even their own name. Thus ends this public service announcement. And no, I am not a student of U of K, nor am I affiliated in any way other than knowing a graduate.

Due to an e-mail mistake by the University of Kansas, 119 students who failed all their classes during the last semester found out who shared their misfortune.
The students were notified earlier this week that they were in jeopardy of having their financial aid revoked. The e-mail sent Monday by the Office of Student Financial Aid asked for additional information to determine if they were still eligible for aid.
The e-mail address list included the names of all 119 students, with the result that everyone on it could see the names of all the others...University policy, Cohen said, is that financial information is to be communicated to students individually, not through a group e-mail. He said the financial aid department is getting training on privacy and security issues related to e-mails.
"This certainly will be a reminder to anybody who is ever pasting e-mail addresses into a message," he said.

Of course, as a matter of social policy, I am not sure it is a bad idea to notify the community of who failed a class. Those with valid reasons (family issues, health issues, or bad teachers) can easily defend themselves, and the rest are given a nice dose of shame to keep them from letting things get out of control again. Then again, this was a violation of law and that is never okay, even if there might be positive social consequences.