2008 Woodie Awards
Not on my Campus
What can be done about sexual assault at colleges
Sherri Daus
Issue date: 12/10/03 Section: News
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On April 5, 1986, Jeanne Ann Cleary, a freshman at Lehigh University in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, was beaten, raped, tortured and sodomized before she was finally killed by another Lehigh student she didn't know. He had gained access to her room through entry doors that had been left propped open by other students living in the dorm.
Despite the school's knowledge that there had been 181 reports of doors being propped open in Jeanne's dorm in the four months prior to her death and the additional awareness of the increase recently in crime on the campus, Lehigh officials publicly reported that Jeanne's death was a mere "aberration" and that Lehigh was doing everything it needed to ensure the safety of its students.
Since Jeanne's death, Congress has passed the "Jeanne Cleary Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act" (formerly the Campus Security Act). This act, signed by President Bush in 1990, is a federal law which requires institutes of higher learning in the United States, such as Lakeland College, to disclose campus crime information not only to students but to the public in the surrounding communities as well.
This law was amended in 1992 to require that schools provide victims with basic rights and amended again in 1998 to emphasize the reporting obligations regarding sexual assault on campus, which is known as the Cleary Act.
In response to this and public pressure, the Education Development Center in Massachusetts conducted a study in conjunction with the University of Cincinnati and the Police Executive Research Forum to gather data regarding the policies, protocols, and programs that currently exist in colleges nationwide.
The vast majority of sexual assaults against students (84-98%) are perpetrated by men known to the victim-commonly known as date or acquaintance rape. Through the study, however, it was revealed that a substantial majority of those victims do not refer to their assault as "rape," and fail to recognize the legal ramifications of the assault against them.
Despite the school's knowledge that there had been 181 reports of doors being propped open in Jeanne's dorm in the four months prior to her death and the additional awareness of the increase recently in crime on the campus, Lehigh officials publicly reported that Jeanne's death was a mere "aberration" and that Lehigh was doing everything it needed to ensure the safety of its students.
Since Jeanne's death, Congress has passed the "Jeanne Cleary Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act" (formerly the Campus Security Act). This act, signed by President Bush in 1990, is a federal law which requires institutes of higher learning in the United States, such as Lakeland College, to disclose campus crime information not only to students but to the public in the surrounding communities as well.
This law was amended in 1992 to require that schools provide victims with basic rights and amended again in 1998 to emphasize the reporting obligations regarding sexual assault on campus, which is known as the Cleary Act.
In response to this and public pressure, the Education Development Center in Massachusetts conducted a study in conjunction with the University of Cincinnati and the Police Executive Research Forum to gather data regarding the policies, protocols, and programs that currently exist in colleges nationwide.
The vast majority of sexual assaults against students (84-98%) are perpetrated by men known to the victim-commonly known as date or acquaintance rape. Through the study, however, it was revealed that a substantial majority of those victims do not refer to their assault as "rape," and fail to recognize the legal ramifications of the assault against them.