Under new federal legislation, enacted on March 15, 2022 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, campus climate survey data for individual college and university campuses is due to be available by 2024. These campus climate surveys will collect comprehensive information about “postsecondary student experiences with domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and stalking” that don’t rely on official reports which are historically significantly underreported under programs like the Jeanne Clery Act.
One U.S. Department of Justice study, the Campus Climate Survey Validation Study (CCSVS) Final Technical Report, found that this meant of 2,380 completed rapes against students in their sample of 9 institutions during the 2014-2015 academic year corresponded to only 40 reports under Clery. This greater understanding of true scope of the challenge on a campus-by-campus level is an essential first step to finding much needed solutions.
U.S. Department of Education to Create Online Survey Portal
Under the new law, based on the Hold Accountable and Lend Transparency (HALT) on Campus Sexual Violence Act, the U.S. Department of Education will be responsible for creating and operating an online survey portal while institutions of higher education will be responsible for administering the surveys every 2 years to “an adequate, random, and representative sample size of students”.
Having the Education Department, in consultation with other federal agencies, develop the online portal will ensure uniformity in data across institutions and that institutions without the resources to develop a robust tool will have the capabilities they need. Institutions will also be able to add campus specific elements to better answer questions unique to their communities.
First National Campus Climate Survey Reports Due in 2024
The Education Department is directed to prepare their first biennial report on information gathered from the standardized elements of the survey “not later than 2 years after the date of enactment” of the law, a due date of March 15, 2024. Meeting this deadline would likely have institutions administering surveys as early as 2023. The reports will include “campus-level data for each institution and attributed by name of each campus in a manner that permits comparisons across institutions and campuses”. Reports will be disseminated to Congress and to the public through an online consumer information tool.
Colleges and Universities Will Also Publish Their Campus Climate Survey Results
Institutions of higher education will also be responsible for releasing campus-level data on their websites and likely in their Clery Act Annual Security Reports. The HALT Act provided that the data would be included in the Clery reports, but the enacted law includes an apparent technical error that instead refers to an unclear “biennial report”. We anticipate this is likely to be interpreted to be the Clery Act reports.
As additional information becomes available we will continue to provide updates.