Thirty years ago today, September 1, 1992, the first Jeanne Clery Act annual security reports were due ushering in a new era of transparency in college and university campus safety. Prior to this the campus crime statistics, and public information about steps taken to secure campuses we take for granted today often weren’t readily available.
This is the living legacy of Jeanne Clery who was murdered on her campus in 1986. She and her family didn’t know about a history of crime on her campus or gaps in residence hall security. Her parents Connie and Howard wanted to ensure that no family in the future didn’t have access to this information.
Their vision started simply with a small brochure with a few basic questions about campus security and crime statistics that prospective students could ask colleges to answer. This included whether or not campus security had the power to make arrests and how residence halls were secured, centerpieces of Clery reports to this day. That many colleges couldn’t or wouldn’t provide these answers is what led to first state then federal legislation, originally known as the Campus Security Act.
While the information that the Clerys envisioned students and their families having is now readily available, the bulk and legalese found in nearly every report today often buries this information in a way that makes it difficult for students to understand. Sometimes reports even state the same thing over and over using different language because they have just been added on to like layers of paint.
Many college and university officials see these bulky reports, which are now due by October 1st, as needed to satisfy U.S. Department of Education bureaucrats. But they aren’t the intended audience. A 17-year-old high school senior is. And even the Education Department has told schools for decades that reports should present “statements in an accurate, concise, readable and organized manner.”
Professors Laura Beth Nielsen and Kat Albrecht writing about similar Title IX polices recently said “The student audience is, at most, an afterthought. The student can’t make heads or tails of the technical, bureaucratic language.” They concluded that “institutions need to…create a simple and clear, step-by-step” guide for students in addition to highly legalistic sexual misconduct policies. This also applies to annual Clery reports as that is what they were always intended to be, the summary of the more technical policies actually used by schools.
I often hear campus officials bemoan having to invest significant time and money in a document “students don’t read.” I’ve even seen a U.S. Senator call for repealing the Clery Act for this very reason receiving applause from an audience of campus safety professionals.
Repealing the Clery Act isn’t the answer though. Creating briefer, better reports is. Then actively market them to students about what the school is doing to keep them safe and how they can be a part of this shared responsibility.
We have a whole month left to accomplish that this year by the October 1st deadline, and that is my challenge to every institution of higher education across the country. This is the best way to honor Jeanne Clery’s legacy and keep students safe like her parents intended.
