President Bill Clinton flanked by members of Congress signs the Higher Education Amendments of 1998 (Public Law 105-244), which includes the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (courtesy Clinton Presidential Materials Project)

WASHINGTON, DC-President Clinton today signed into law a higher education bill containing extensive campus security related provisions. The new law will expand disclosure of campus crime statistics and require schools to keep a public police log. Also, schools will no longer be able to hide violent criminal behavior in secret campus courts. Other provisions will suspend aid to students convicted of drug crimes, and create programs to address binge drinking and violence against women on campus.

The requirements, part of a five year reauthorization of federal higher education laws, will apply to all schools, both public and private, that participate in federal student aid programs.

These reforms come after years of charges that colleges were exploiting loopholes in reporting laws to underreport campus crimes and protect their images. The members of Security On Campus, Inc. (http://www.soconline.org), a national non-profit watchdog organization, joined with other victims' rights groups, media organizations led by the Society of Professional Journalists (http://spj.org), and law enforcement groups to demand that Congress make schools be honest and open about their campus crime.

"These changes will significantly improve campus safety across the country" said S. Daniel Carter the Vice President of SOC. "Students have been deliberately left in the dark and couldn't make informed decisions about how to avoid and prevent campus crime."

"Also left in the dark are the Boards of Trustees and certain administrators. This public information available to trustees, alumni, faculty and parents will force administrators to provide adequate assets to reduce all types of crime, especially student-on-student crime," added Carter.

The amendments mark the first major revisions of a reporting law enacted in 1990 to address increasing violence on college campuses. Howard and Connie Clery, SOC's co-founders, led the effort to pass that law after their daughter Jeanne was murdered at Lehigh University in 1986. The new law is named in memory of Jeanne Clery.

Connie Clery said the new law is "a living memorial to our beautiful daughter and the thousands of other victims of campus crime. This will save many lives."

Nearly 50,000 crimes are reported on college campuses annually according to the understated U.S. Department of Education statistics.