Most people know it simply as the Jeanne Clery Act, but it has a much longer technical name that is outdated. Renaming it the “Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act” would better reflect this comprehensive law & improve campus safety.
Many people identify the Clery Act with crime statistics or the alerts that colleges and universities send out when there is a dangerous situation. As we often discuss with our clients though the law has grown over the last three decades to address a full spectrum of campus safety issues. The law’s full name, however, hasn’t kept up.
Renaming the law the “Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act” would better reflect this comprehensive framework and could help bolster campus safety efforts. It would of course also continue honoring Jeanne Clery’s living legacy.
The law’s current formal name the “Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act” set in 1998 is a bureaucratic vestige of the underlying 1990 law’s early focus on security and crime statistics. It now, however, addresses sexual violence, alcohol and other drugs, emergency management, and missing students. Congress is currently considering adding hazing and accidents that result in serious bodily injury or death.
Updating the law’s name would be more than symbolic. In order to work effectively the Clery Act needs institution-wide, multidisciplinary buy-in. If we use the broader term “campus safety” we could better engender support for these initiatives ultimately making our campuses safer.