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What on earth does Lancaster University think it is doing taking measures against an academic and his department for telling a student's mother what courses he was taking ("Don't tell Mum: academic censured for discussing son's course load", 15 May)? What kind of academic world are we living in when the most innocuous information can be held to be some kind of state secret and divulging it some kind of heinous offence? And what kind of students are we admitting who don't even want their parents to be told that they are members of the university they have gone to?

Some sense of proportion is needed in such cases, and Lancaster has shown none. This is in contrast to the balanced response to the matter given by the lawyers consulted by Times Higher Education. Did Lancaster take legal advice before it acted? If it didn't, it should have done. If it did, it probably needs to change its lawyers.

Howard Moss, Swansea.