The U.S. Department of Education published the final rules for executing changes to the Clery Act Monday. These changes have been discussed by the department since June, and now that they have been finalized, will go into effect July 2015, though universities will be encouraged to make a “good faith effort” to follow the rules even before that date.
According to Inside Higher Ed, the most significant change is that colleges and universities will be required to disclose “the number of reported crimes which were investigated but determined to be unfounded” for the past three calendar years and for every year in the future. Other new rules include requirements to report incidents of stalking, dating violence and domestic violence, adding nationality and gender-identity to consideration for hate-crimes, and allowing both the accused and the accuser to have advisers with them during disciplinary proceedings.
The most significant change in the policy — requiring “unfounded” crime reports to be disclosed — was portrayed by Lynn Mahaffie, acting assistant secretary for postsecondary education, as a measure which “allows us to better monitor what crimes are being reported, see the extent that reporting is being abused, and provide technical assistance.”
But a high number of complaints which are unfounded probably would not indicate “abuse of the system,” especially since certain crimes have such low reporting rates. Though the Clery Act applies to all crime on campuses, the renewal of the Violence Against Women act is what prompted the most recent changes. Sexual assault, which is perhaps the most commonly discussed crime against college women, has remarkably low reporting rates, and the incidence of false reports nationally is low. Hopefully, if the Department of Education notices a university determines a high number of sexual assault complaints to be unfounded, they use that as reason to question the college’s processes, not the students’ claims. There is more reason to use this rule to scrutinize the institutions’ practices, especially with so many universities under investigation for mishandling sexual assault cases.
With these changes come not only a continued focus on sexual assault, but also a new emphasis on other forms of sexual misconduct, such as stalking and dating violence. Requiring colleges to report these different types of incidents rightly responds to statistics which reveal other ways college women are often victimized. At least three in 10 college women have been stalked, and about the same percentage say they have been in an abusive relationship. These crimes threaten women’s safety on campuses and deserve as much as attention as sexual assault.
The rule which allows both parties to have advisers in disciplinary proceedings prevents an institution from restricting what kind of adviser a student can have, though it can still restrict the role the adviser can play. Having an adviser is essential for students who go through an adjudication process; testifying at a hearing and facing an assailant in person can re-traumatize a sexual assault survivor, and just having a person to accompany her through the process can alleviate that burden. The promise of an adviser may encourage more student survivors to file complaints. And to ensure fairness, the accused students should have the same opportunities as the accusers.
The concern about this rule is the possibility of students having attorneys as their advisers. Students who have less financial resources may be at a disadvantage in this respect. But the school can still prohibit advisers from speaking to the adjudicating panel during the proceedings, minimizing the legal expertise that a wealthy student could take advantage of. The role of the adviser should be supportive, not argumentative. Sexual misconduct board proceedings are not run like criminal trials.
Overall, the Clery Act changes reflect how the federal government has taken responsibility over addressing the problem of sexual misconduct on college campuses. It remains to be seen whether universities will exert their best efforts to follow the new regulations, but hopefully the incentives from Department of Education will prompt changes in institutions that have demonstrated obvious shortcomings when dealing with this very serious issue.
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