A new provision to the Jeanne Clery Act will help college students be notified immediately in the event an on campus emergency takes place. The provision is in response to the Virginia Tech massacre where 32 students and employees were killed in April 2007.
As students return to college this week and next, a new law designed to protect them in the event of an on campus emergency has been signed by President Bush. This law is in response to the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus in April 2007 that took the lives of 32 people, many of whom had no idea that a gunman was on the loose.
“Immediate notification of an emergency will empower students and employees to better be able to protect themselves and save lives,” said Jonathan Kassa, the Executive Director of Security On Campus, Inc., a national non-profit organization that worked with both families of the Virginia Tech shooting victims and campus law enforcement to help develop the new warning provision.
The Jeanne Clery Act
The new provision is part of the Jeanne Clery Act, named for a Lehigh University student who was murdered in her Lehigh University dorm room in April 1986 by a fellow student whom she did not know. Connie and Howard Clery, Jeanne’s parents, took their grief to start a movement to protect college students, learning along the way that criminal activity on many college campuses wasn’t shared with students and their parents. Working with legislators, the Clerys helped make the Jeanne Clery Act law in 1990 with several amendments added since then.
This provision “will go a long way to make our nation’s campuses and students safer and improve colleges’ readiness and in the event of emergencies,” added U.S. Representative Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4), one of the leading proponents of the measure in Congress. “Using both high and low tech means, many institutions across the country have already adopted this approach and are issuing campuswide emergency notifications.”
More Than 30 State and Federal Laws Passed
Jeanne’s father, Howard, died earlier this year at the age of 77 in Florida. The Clerys co-founded Security on Campus and helped to draft and see the passage of more than thirty state and federal laws to protect college students. The organization maintains a website where visitors can learn more about the Jeanne Clery Act and what they can do to help make their college campuses safer.
References
U.S. Department of Education — Campus Security (pdf)
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