Staff Ediorial
Location: School of Law
Summary: Chair gave way under female faculty member.
Location: George Page Apartments
Summary: Two students caught engaging in a sexual act in front of an open window.
They range from the silly to the mundane to the outright absurd. And while the tidbits of humorous escapades mixed with serious incidents seem buried on page A2 of the Graphic, a spring 2001 readership survey revealed that they are among the most read words in the newspaper.
The Public Safety reports, however, are good for more than a Thursday afternoon chuckle. In the past, they have tipped the Graphic staff off to recurring laptop theft from rooms, prompting an article on student-oriented campus security measures. The reports have also revealed drug and alcohol possession incidents, serious injuries and, at times, even death. In the Pepperdine bubble, these incidents can be a shock.
However, what has been a greater shock in the past few weeks has not been what is in the reports, but rather what is missing.
A student came to a Graphic editor and wanted to know whether the paper would know about a sexual assault that she reported to the Department of Public Safety.
The editor immediately looked to the DPS reports, which according to federal law are supposed to contain crimes reported to the university, and was dumbfounded to find that the alleged incident was not included. While no charges were filed against the male accused in the matter, according to the 1990 Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, any action that would constitute a crime must be included in the daily crime log whether it is prosecuted by local law enforcement officials, campus judiciary, or no one at all.
The university claims, however, that they were not obligated to report this specific incident, citing exemptions in the law, now known as the Clery Act, and an ambiguous definition of a “crime.”
Initially, the university said that the occurrence was not added to the log because doing so would impede the investigation. How reporting the incident, which is done without names, would have impeded the investigation is unclear.
When no charges were filed, however, the exemption was no longer valid as the univeristy acknowledged and the incident then should have been added to the log. The university, however, says that the incident was not considered a crime because it was not prosecuted due to lack of evidence.
The Graphic believes that the university’s logic does not add up.
The law has an eight-fold definition of what constitutes a crime. That definition includes sex offenses, which more specifically encompasses forcible fondling, the alleged crime that was committed against the woman who came forward.
If one follows the university’s logic, it would seem that any incident, unless it is prosecuted by local law enforcement, is exempt form the campus crime reports. According to the Clery Act, however, the crime does not have to be prosecuted by local law enforcement, a campus court, or any other entity before it is reported.
The university’s logic clearly does not reflect the intent of the law.
It stands to reason, then, that the woman’s incident should have been reported in the DPS reports to the Graphic. The Student Press Law Center, one of the most respected authorities on high school and college press law, agrees with the Graphic’s position.
The Graphic staff echoes the woman’s concern. We want to make sure that we are receiving the information that is required by law to be released for the purpose of informing the Pepperdine community.
As we have continually done in the past, we want to ensure that these issues are brought to light whether done so to protect simple material possessions like a laptop or to protect those things we truly value most, human dignity and life.
We cannot do this, however, without the support of the university.
The Graphic has always appreciated the measures that the university has taken to ensure that campus crime information is reported. The administration has always been cooperative and helpful.
An incident like this, however, makes us wonder how many other reports might be sanitized before they reach the Graphic. We have no way of knowing unless, as in this case, a student comes forward.
“The student, as a person of infinite dignity, is the heart of the educational enterprise,” the affirmation statement declares. That statement is followed closely by another affirmation: “That truth, having nothing to fear from investigation, should be pursued relentlessly in every discipline.”
The Graphic strives to do both, fleshing out the truth for the benefit of the student body.
We value our relationship with the Department of Public Safety, the General Counsel’s office, the Office Public Relations and News and the Seaver Dean of Student Affairs, and hope that, through mutual cooperation, we can have honest discourse about the safety of our students.
April 04, 2002