Law to Make Colleges Safer; Require Sexual Assault Policy

Two provisions buried within the mammoth Higher education reauthorization Act may make college campuses safer, advocates said yesterday.

The act, signed into law last week by President Bush, drew widespread attention for the impact it will have on federal and lvy League financial aid programs. But parts of the act will also affect campus police departments and college sexual assault policies.

One of the Act's sections, known as the "Campus Sexual Assault Victims' bill of Rights," requires colleges and universities to develop a "campus sexual assault policy." the act says such policies should include rape-awareness programs and standard procedures for handling sexual assault cases.

It is so far unclear whether this portion of the act will affect Harvard's procedures regarding sexual assaults. Harvard's policy is currently under review following a report by the Date Rape Task Force last spring.

Another section of the Act will stop college and university police departments from claiming that law enforcement records about students are actually educational records, which must be kept private under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Some college police departments have been using that tactic to hide public information about students who commit crimes.

Activists yesterday noted the newly-passed provisions with pleasure.

"These laws are making our campuses safer," said Howard K. Clery Jr., president of Security on Campus, a Pennsylvania-based advocacy group.

Joshua A. Gerstein '91, who wrote a Massachusetts law which requires campus police departments to keep accurate and complete records, said he had lobbied hard for the federal records amendment.

Gerstein, a former senior editor of The Crimson, said that before the act was passed, "if a student were wanted for some heinous crime, [campus police] couldn't put up a poster. This should fix that problem."