The U. S. Department of Education was awarded $200,000 in April for a successful lawsuit against a West Virginia university that breached the 1986 Clery Act.
Salem International University was forced to pay the fine after courts proved the university had not reported crimes occurring on the campus between 1997 and 1999.
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act requires all American universities to publicly disclose information related to crime on campuses. The act is named after 19-year-old Jeanne Ann Clery, a freshman at Leigh University who was raped and murdered in her residence hall April 5, 1986.
Security on Campus, Inc. co-founders Connie and Howard Clery said in a statement the imposition of $200,000 fine on SIU puts much-needed teeth into the Clery Act.
“For the first time the U.S. Department of Education has sent a strong message that colleges and universities across the country must take their Jeanne Clery Act campus crime reporting obligations seriously,” the statement said.
However, some consider the penalty harsh considering many of the situational circumstances that exist.
SIU Vice-President of Marketing Jeff Handler said Salem is no longer the same university it was five years ago, when the case first opened. At that time, the university was not even known as SIU, rather it was called Salem Takeiyo. Handler said the university’s administration and governance board has completely switched out since that time.
“We are no longer even the same university, in shape, way or form,” Handler said. “At some point we’ve got to move on because nobody here can really even testify to the facts of the case.”
Additionally, Handler said the $200,000 stamp on the university’s reputation was quite hefty considering the university’s small size. SIU is home to 600 students, with 400 taking courses online.
“For a small private college, it’s a very, very considerable amount of money to pay,” Handler said.
Still, Handler found it ironic that the Department of Education had struck SIU with such a hard blow, since Salem is not a city with a significant amount of crime.
“If you could find crime, even a burglary over the last six months, you’d be doing well. The toughest day here is a deer may be caught for jaywalking,” Handler said. “I think the toughest thing we’ve had in the last four or five months is someone being publicly drunk.”
Still, University of Wisconsin law professor Howard Schweber said there were other possible reasons the fine against SIU was so high.
“Punitive fines rarely get that high. Ordinarily that would signal to me there was repeated … evasion,” Schweber said. “This must have been a truly egregious case.”
Despite the weight of the penalty, Salem still believed the Clery Act was very necessary for campuses to implement. In fact, Handler said he believed the Clery Act need to be expanded to be more effective.
“The Clery Act really only covers incidents that only occur on the campus,” Handler said. “Anything that happens 10-feet outside [campus], … that is technically controlled and goes unreported to university.”
