King of Prussia, Penn.-Nationally recognized campus safety advocates Connie & Howard Clery, the co-founders of the non-profit organization Security On Campus, Inc., issue the following statement praising the U.S. Department of Education's imposition of a $200,000 fine on West Virginia's Salem International University for violating federal campus crime reporting requirements from 1997 through 1999:

"The imposition of a $200,000 fine on Salem International University for misrepresenting their campus crime statistics and other security violations finally puts the much needed teeth in the Jeanne Clery Act that we have been asking for since Congress first passed the law 15 years ago. For the first time the U.S. Department of Education has sent a strong message that colleges and universities across the country must take their Jeanne Clery Act campus crime reporting obligations seriously."

"Our daughter Jeanne was brutally raped and murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University in 1986 because of what she didn't know about a history of crime on her campus. We fought hard to make campuses disclose their crime information so other students wouldn't face the same danger, but until now schools had faced no real punishment if they lied. Now they know they had better tell the truth!"

According to a "Settlement Agreement" document, obtained by Security On Campus, Inc. using the Freedom of Information Act, Salem International University has admitted that "it was in violation of the Clery Act" in the late 1990's and has agreed "to pay the Department a fine in the amount of $200,000... in 5 equal installments of $40,000." The agreement, which became final on April 7th, brings to a close a five year long review that began in February of 2000 with a complaint filed by local Police Chief E.T. Howell about how crime was handled on SIU's campus.

An initial report issued by the U.S. Department of Education in 2001 found numerous violations, including the omission of more than eighty crimes, five of which were sexual assaults, from annual statistics required to be reported by the Clery Act. A final report issued last year upheld these findings and resulted in a $250,000 fine which SIU appealed before resolving the case this year with the $200,000 settlement.

Salem is only the second school ever fined for Clery Act violations, and the first to be ordered to pay a six figure fine. In 2000 Mount St. Clare College, now Ashford University, in Clinton, Iowa was ordered to pay a $25,000 fine and settled for $15,000.