After Jeanne Clery was raped and murdered in her Lehigh University dorm room in 1986, her parents fought to give other families access to information about campus safety, which they hoped would help prevent violence at colleges and universities. Out of their efforts grew the Clery Act, requiring colleges and universities to disclose statistics about crimes that occur on and around their campuses in an Annual Security Report (ASR).

Schools began submitting ASRs in 1992, but enforcement of the act has been lax. According to a 2005 National Institute of Justice report, only 37 percent of schools reported statistics in a manner consistent with federal laws. Yet Senator Arlen Specter claimed in a 2006 Senate hearing that the Department of Education (ED) had imposed only three fines in 20 years.

Now it looks like ED is getting serious about the issue of campus safety and is no longer issuing free passes to noncompliant colleges and universities.

Even as ED ramps up Clery Act enforcement, a series of high-profile complaints filed by students across the country suggest a popular groundswell against noncompliant schools. A group of student activists even hand delivered a petition to ED requesting stricter enforcement of the Clery Act and Title IX.

New Federal Requirements

Indeed, the federal government placed campus safety front and center on March 7, 2013, when they enacted the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act. The SaVE Act expanded the crime categories in a school’s ASR to include:

• hate crimes based on national origin, sexual orientation, and gender identity
• domestic and dating violence
• stalking

The SaVE Act also requires schools to create policies and education programs for students and staff that promote awareness and focus on prevention of sexual violence. These education programs are aimed at preventing sexual violence and will bolster the ED’s enforcement effort to bring about lasting change.

Given the tragic consequences of sexual violence, helping students stay safe is a goal we all share and support.