(a) Any personnel or employment record (including but not necessarily limited to requests for reasonable accommodation, application forms submitted by applicants and other records having to do with hiring, promotion, tenure, demotion, transfer, layoff, or termination, rates of pay or other terms of compensation, and selection for training) made or kept by an institution of higher education shall be preserved by such institution of higher education for a period of two years from the date of the making of the personnel action or record involved, whichever occurs later. In the case of the involuntary termination of an employee, the personnel records of the individual terminated shall be kept for a period of two years from the date of termination. Where a charge of discrimination has been filed, or a civil action brought against an institution of higher education by the Commission or the Attorney General, the respondent shall preserve similarly at the central administrative office of the institution of higher education, at the central office of a separate campus or branch, or at the individual school which is the subject of the charge or action, where more convenient, all personnel records relevant to the charge or action until final disposition thereof. The term “personnel records relevant to the charge,” for example, would include personnel or employment records relating to the person claiming to be aggrieved and to all other employees holding positions similar to that held or sought by the person claiming to be aggrieved; it would also include application forms or test papers completed by an unsuccessful applicant and by all other candidates for the same position as that for which the person claiming to be aggrieved applied and was rejected. The date of “final disposition of the charge or the action” means the date of expiration of the statutory period within which a person claiming to be aggrieved may bring an action in the United States District Court, or, where an action is brought against an institution of higher education by a person claiming to be aggrieved, the Commission, or the Attorney General, the date on which such litigation is terminated.

(b) The requirements of paragraph (a) of this section shall not apply to application forms and other preemployment records of non-student applicants for positions known to non-student applicants to be of a temporary or seasonal nature.