"Forcing a victim to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to find out the outcome of a hearing which they initiated, is not only against the law, it's inhumane."-Kate Dieringer

ED Letter To Georgetown University (July 16, 2004) ED Letter To Kate Dieringer (July 16, 2004)

King of Prussia, Penn. -- As millions of college students prepare to go back to school in the next few weeks, campus crime victim advocates are hailing a landmark federal ruling that will help improve safety on college and university campuses across the country. In last month's ruling against Georgetown University, the U.S. Department of Education held that it is illegal for a college to make a campus rape victim sign a confidentiality agreement in order to be told the results of disciplinary action taken against their alleged assailant.

Under the federal Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, sexual assault victims must unconditionally be told these results the federal agency ruled. Institutions that violate the law face fines of up to $27,500 per violation or loss of eligibility to participate in federal student aid programs.

"This ruling significantly advances student safety and marks a major improvement in the way our nation treats campus sexual assault victims," said Connie Clery, C.E.O. and co-founder of the national non-profit victim assistance organization Security On Campus, Inc. Clery and her husband Howard championed federal campus crime reporting and victims' rights legislation after they experienced first-hand the tragedy of campus violence.

"As our own family learned, after my daughter Jeanne was brutally raped and murdered on campus, colleges don't want their images sullied by public crime reports," said Clery. "This ruling ensures that rape victims won't be silenced by schools which are more concerned about their image than keeping their students safe."

"If they want to talk to their friends about what happened to them, they can. If they want to tell them who did it, they can. If they want to put up a poster when the school lets the guy off with hardly any punishment, they can. If they want to hold a news conference and announce to the campus just how the school handled the case, they can. If doing this will help them heal, then they should do just that, and the school can't stop them."

Colleges and universities have come under fire in recent years for operating a secret system of on-campus justice that handles everything from routine alcohol violations to crimes as serious as rape and even cases involving student deaths. Often the police are never involved in these campus court cases. Students frequently aren't warned about crimes handled there, depriving them of information about dangers to their safety.

Colleges abuse student privacy laws to operate these "Star Chamber" courts, which hand down relatively light sentences such as 500-word essays or short suspensions from school for serious crimes such as rape. Such courts often require witnesses and victims to sign confidentiality agreements, threatening disciplinary action against them if they disclose any information about the cases they are a party to.

"Forcing a victim to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to find out the outcome of a hearing which they initiated, is not only against the law, it's inhumane," said Kate Dieringer the Georgetown student who complained to the Department of Education last year about having to sign a confidentiality agreement in her campus sexual assault case.

The fellow student Dieringer accused of raping her as a freshman in the fall of 2001 was initially expelled from school in the spring of 2002, but appealed the sanction down to a one-year suspension. The confidentiality agreement that she had signed barred her from making public concerns about how the process was handled. Sadly, Dieringer's story is not uncommon.

Sexual assault is an extensive problem on campuses across the country, but is only very rarely reported to the police. As many as one in four female college students may be the victim of a sexual assault during their college careers according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Fewer than five percent of these assaults, however, will be reported to the police.

"The Georgetown ruling helps to break the culture of silence that campus rape thrives in," said S. Daniel Carter the Senior Vice President of Security On Campus, Inc. "Now victims will better be able to heal, complain about problems with student disciplinary proceedings, and warn their fellow students if another student who is a potential threat to their safety has been allowed to remain on campus. All of these things will help combat campus sexual assault, and make our nation's campuses safer."

A copy of the U.S. Department of Education's ruling in the Georgetown University case is available on the Security On Campus, Inc. web site at http://www.securityoncampus.org/reporters/releases/degioia071604.pdf.

Security On Campus, Inc. is the only national non-profit organization devoted exclusively to increasing security on our nation's college and university campuses, and to serving the victims of campus violence. The group was co-founded by Connie and Howard Clery in 1987 after their daughter Jeanne's brutal rape and murder the year before at Lehigh University. The Clerys were also instrumental in the passage of the federal Jeanne Clery Act a campus crime reporting and victims' rights law. The organization is headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania near Philadelphia.