WHAT HAPPENED
Officials at both USC and Occidental College have admitted to underreporting the number of sexual assault cases over the past few years.
According to the Los Angeles Times, “Occidental is now under investigation for violations of the Clery Act. Students at USC have filed a complaint alleging Clery violations that federal investigators have yet to act on. In addition, both schools are under investigation for possible violations of Title IX, a federal antidiscrimination law that requires colleges to impartially investigate sexual assaults.”
The Clery Act, formally known as The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, requires that all universities and colleges disclose information about crime on and near their campuses. The act is named after a 19-year-old freshman at Lehigh University who was raped and murdered in her campus residence hall in 1986. It requires that the crimes statistics be published and distributed by Oct. 1 each year to current and prospective students and employees.
WHY IT MATTERS
At USC, in 2010-11, 13 accounts of sexual assault were not reported to federal officials, and Occidental College failed to include 24 reports. These undisclosed incidents not only paint a false picture of the safety of the schools, but can also lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal penalties.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR US
Alumnus Kris Leslie (’13), who worked for the Department of Public Ssafety from 2011 to 2013, described his experience and work at Pepperdine.
“Pepperdine feels safer because we have a guard gate,” he said. “We can control who’s coming in and out, as opposed to many other open-campus schools.”
Leslie also noted that Pepperdine is a close community, which plays an important role in the safety of its students. “Pepperdine is kind of like a bubble, in the fact that it’s so protected and sheltered,” Leslie said. “In the case of safety, that can be a very good thing.”
That being said, the Clery report doesn’t solely contain sexual assault cases; it includes things such as burglary, robbery and drug and liquor infractions.
According to the 2012 Clery Report, Pepperdine University’s Malibu campus had three counts of forcible sex offenses, 25 burglaries, 19 liquor law violations referred for disciplinary actions and 11 drug law violations referred for disciplinary action. The data was compiled by reports logged by the DPS, Student Affairs and local law enforcement.
Pepperdine’s Clery Report can be located online at www.pepperdine.edu/publicsafety/department/safety/. All of Pepperdine’s campuses, including international and graduate campuses, are included in the report as well and had no incidents to report.
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As published in the Oct. 31 issue of the Pepperdine Graphic.
