Why Campus Crime, Even Sexual Violence, Can No Longer Be Wrapped In Secrecy

Seven figure operating budgets are common now for most colleges and universities. Besides financial clout, these schools also muster considerable influence over the lives and futures of scores of Americans. The college experience ranks high among the necessary equipment of a young adult on the brink of full citizenship in our nation.

With such far-reaching and potent power come complex obligations for these colleges and universities. Most schools readily agree they must regulate student behavior. Most agree that a safe learning environment is highly desirable, though not always possible. Most understand that they must take sides gingerly in disputes between and among their students. College administrators wish students would rely unquestioningly on the wise governing of their elders in the academy. But college administrators recognize that the student population has become diverse in ways never imagined fifty years ago. Over that same time period, the willingness of students to defer to administrators' wide discretion with regard to the regulation of student conduct has markedly eroded. Students want to be informed and to participate in all facets of a campus governance.

With open campuses and unrestricted dormitories, colleges and universities now find themselves in the middle of a crime wave. The flow of alcohol and controlled substances washes over the old ideas about decorum. In a mere twenty-five years, schools having only a handful of female students now boast a female majority. Male major sports programs stretch academic requirements in their recruiting to the point where the term " scholar athlete" becomes an oxymoron. All-male enclaves which formerly dominated most campuses have shrunk into stadium locker- rooms. Put all of these elements into a compact geographical area and trouble is inevitable.

Colleges and universities must step up to their responsibilities to educate their students about citizenship and modern living. Schools must take action to prevent crime, to protect their constituency and promote public safety, even if those measures may be in conflict with other goals, such as a winning season. The United States demands as much, particularly if the schools are accepting federal funding in order to carry on their individual educational missions.

What standard then are collegiate federal fund recipients to be held when they step into the criminal arena? The Campus Security Act requires that the schools keep and report accurate crime statistics for the obvious reason that students forewarned are students forearmed against criminal injury. Simply because they are educational institutions, will slipshod, half-hearted and misleading crime reporting suffice? Of course not and the Accuracy in Campus Crime Reporting Act of 1997 has been introduced to Congress to ensure that colleges fulfill their obligation under the Campus Security Act of 1990 by clarifying requirements and providing incentives. The main thrust of ACCRA opens campus crime reporting and adjudication to the fresh air of public scrutiny. Understandably, ACCRA's purpose causes both schools and individuals some discomfort.

Simply because they are students, should persons involved in a criminal incident be granted anonymity not usually available in police reports in any other setting? Of course not. The reporting of information on the public record is shaped by local convention. For example, most news organizations do not report the victim's name in matters involving sex crimes; nor, are minors ever identified. Then why do groups such as Campus Outreach Services become so threatened by proposed "sunshine" laws for campus adjudications?

Virtual dogma is the notion that all sexual assault survivors are deeply mortified by embarrassment and overwhelmed by the fear society will judge them in complicity with their ravishers. Hence, a call for secrecy becomes automatic for handling sexual crime.

Victims of sexual crimes will not report and will not prosecute, says Campus Outreach Services, if their identities will become known. Yet, the founder of Campus Outreach Services made her report from the front cover of Time Magazine and prosecuted her case via a made-for-television movie. Most victims of sexual crime are not so serendipitously photogenic; they sign a statement in front of a police officer or swear out a warrant in front of a magistrate. Only anecdotal evidence is ever offered in support of the notion that victims of sexual crime crave anonymity. The founder of Campus Outreach Services asks Congress to take it on faith, even though that was not the route she chose for herself.

The price of secrecy is too high to take its need on faith. Secrecy prevents quality control, stymies education, grants a limited number of persons unbridled discretion and eliminates reasoned over-sight. Any student of history would recognize these as ingredients for tyranny. Secrecy allows inferior adjudications conducted by school employees and sometimes by students who are at best badly trained for the task and who are at worst profoundly in conflict with their own paychecks. Secrecy intensifies old concepts of shame and victim-blame while preventing a victim from enjoying the encouragement and support of the wider community.

As more women object strenuously to sexual victimization and get fair recompense for their injuries, the need for secrecy, the shrouding of identities, the sealing of police reports and the assigning of euphemisms to the heinous acts will fade. Crime, particularly sexual crime, must be dragged out into the open, exposed to the clear light of day and demythologized. As institutions of higher learning, colleges and universities should be at the forefront of opening all minds- -male and female--to the injustice of sexual violence. Schools should not be allowed to trail behind business, industry and the military, all of which are advancing justice with deliberate speed.

This is not to say, of course, that schools should be obligated to substitute their tribunals for constitutionally established courts. Indeed, a college or a university should never undertake the adjudication of a felony or sexual violence without first reporting the incident to the local police and prosecutor. The duty of every citizen is to report serious crime when he or she becomes aware of it. Nor, should schools allow crime victims to dictate whether a crime is reported to the local police and prosecutor. In the face of serious crime, the greater good must sometimes displace the preferences of the individual. Sexual violence is seldom an isolated event and accurate reporting can provide support to prevention programs. Adjudications of felonies or sexual violence should never go forward without express clearance from a school's local prosecutor.

Once that clearance is obtained, however, secrecy should play no part in any adversarial adjudication. Schools ought to institute Alternative Dispute Resolution regimes in addition to adversarial adjudications if they wish to provide disputing students with privacy.

Though the writer is a private attorney who makes her practice in bringing actions against colleges and universities on behalf of individuals, I frankly believe an express grant of a private right of action to enforce the Campus Security Act would be counter-productive. As a former college professor, I believe that schools cannot thrive in an atmosphere of siege. Rather schools should always be given choices and incentives to change their policies. Congress merely needs to assist colleges and universities in refocusing their priorities, particularly when it comes to crime control and the prevention of sexual violence. An unwilling school can always step outside of these problems by sacrificing its federal funding.

Eileen N. Wagner is a Richmond, Virginia attorney specializing in Education and Womens' Rights law. She filed one of the first suits under the Violence Against Women Act's civil remedy provision on behalf of Christy Brzonkala against Virginia Tech and members of the school's football team.