Princeton University announced on Tuesday that it would move its director of admissions to another administrative position following revelations that admissions officials had broken into Yale University's admissions Web site in April.
Stephen LeMenager, the director of admissions who was the first to use confidential student information to access the admissions decisions of several Yale applicants, will work in another department until a permanent replacement position can be found.
Princeton Dean of Admissions Fred Hargadon will be allowed to retain his position until his planned retirement next June, according to a statement issued by University President Shirley Tilghman.
Additionally, several other members of the admissions staff who either logged on the Yale Web site or "failed to recognize the impropriety of doing so" will be subject to disciplinary actions, according to Tilghman.
Hargadon also released a statement in which he accepted responsibility for the actions of those in his office and for "not having called attention to the impropriety of such behavior," saying that he would work to restore the "complete integrity" of the admissions office during the coming year.
Tilghman said that Princeton will also establish a training program for admissions staff members on issues of privacy and confidentiality, in addition to assessing policies on data security.Marilyn Marks, media relations director at Princeton, said the college "certainly hoped" that the array of changes would prevent any similar incident from occurring in the future.
Yale President Richard Levin praised Princeton's response to the incident, saying that Tilghman had "handled a very difficult situation in an exemplary manner."
Levin said he was "impressed by the thoroughness of Princeton's internal investigation and confident that all concerned now recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of college applicants."
Yale initially heard of the break-in during a May 15 meeting of Ivy League admissions officers, when LeMenager informally disclosed that he had accessed the Web site. LeManager's comments were later reported to other officials at Yale, who launched an investigation into the matter.
Upon learning of the matter from Yale on July 24, Tilghman immediately commissioned an independent investigation to determine exactly what had happened.
Findings from that investigation revealed that Yale's admissions Web site had been accessed 18 times from computers on the Princeton campus during April, and that 14 of those instances occurred on computers located in the university's admissions office.
Though the log-ins were conducted using the confidential birth dates and social security numbers of Princeton applicants who had also applied to Yale, Tilghman said that "there is no evidence" that admissions officials intended to do any more than simply test the security of the Web site.
Yale debuted its online notification system -- which allows applicants to instantly access their admissions decisions -- in December. Tilghman said Princeton had been considering a similar Web site but had been deterred partly by concerns over the security of any online system.
