On Thursday the U.S. Department of Education (ED) addressed mounting concerns about safety on college campuses after meeting with, among others, student survivors of sexual assault. As part of the implementation of an updated Jeanne Clery Act, ED announced new regulations seeking to curb sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. “These new rules strengthen schools’ capacity to provide safer college campuses for students and to keep everyone better informed about campus security policies and procedures,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

The Jeanne Clery Act was approved by Congress in 1990 as the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act and took effect in 1991 and was renamed after a 19-year-old college student who was raped and murdered in her Lehigh University dorm room in 1986. Her assailant was a student she did not know prior to the attack. Her family committed themselves to effecting change. Among other requirements, the Jeanne Clery Act compelled colleges to disclose their security policies, publish an annual crime report, and provide timely warnings about any immediate or ongoing threats to students and campus employees. However, recent concerns about increasing sexual violence on college campuses necessitated renovating the original rules included in the act.

A panel comprised in part of representatives from law enforcement, universities, and advocacy groups helped devise the new set of proposed regulations, which now include a stipulation that colleges compile statistics for incidents of dating violence, stalking, and domestic violence in addition to the currently aggregated statistics for sexual assaults and other crimes. This additional data is intended to provide a broader picture of the abuses surfacing on campuses and the extent to which they occur. In turn, this should help policy-makers better address these issues. Duncan stated ED has a responsibility to ensure colleges and universities are “appropriately reporting crimes that occur on or near their campuses.”

Another significant change announced on Thursday is the addition of gender identity and national origin as categories of bias under the Jeanne Clery Act’s definition of hate crimes. Formerly, categories of prejudice included race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and disability. The new regulations will also incorporate the FBI’s revised, more inclusive definition of rape: “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” Additionally, the regulations will strengthen protections for victim confidentiality while helping them to access the support, services, and the options for disciplinary and legal action available to them.

Today, the Clery family, through the Clery Center for Security On Campus, provides Clery Act compliance trainings for college and university officials and continues to advocate for victims.