For Immediate Release
October 11, 2002
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For Immediate Release |
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Williamsburg, VA-The College of William and Mary has been accused by Security On Campus, Inc., a nonprofit watchdog organization, of improperly using a federal student privacy law to silence the grievances of a campus rape victim. “It is an unconscionable abuse of power,” said Daniel Carter the vice president of Security On Campus.
Last week a poster being displayed by a campus rape victim that named her assailant and warned that he was going to be allowed back on campus was removed from the University Center by the college. The poster said that the student had been suspended for the October 2001 rape, but would be allowed to request reinstatement this month.
The college claimed that the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) required them to remove the poster because it contained private information from a student disciplinary proceeding. The college also claimed that the law prevented them from commenting about the case.
“This insane interpretation of FERPA means that a rapist’s name can not be released to his fellow students who he may revictimize,” said Howard K. Clery, Jr. who co-founded Security On Campus, Inc. with his wife Connie after their daughter Jeanne was brutally raped and murdered on the campus of Lehigh University in 1986. Clery’s organization has secured the passage of numerous pieces of campus security legislation, including a 1998 amendment to FERPA that specifically allows colleges to release this type of information.
“Congress recognized that students need to be warned about potentially dangerous students when they are allowed back on campus. It is a shame that the College of William and Mary is more concerned about protecting their image than protecting their students,” said Carter.
Carter has written to college president Timothy Sullivan asking that the poster be allowed back up, with the assailant’s name included, and that the college take action on the victim’s complaint that he is being allowed back on campus too soon.
Security On Campus has also written to the U.S. Department of Education asking that they “immediately make it clear to” the college, and other schools across the country “that victims of violent crimes in cases where it is found that school rules were broken can publicly redisclose the name of their assailant, what they were accused of, and the disciplinary action, if any, taken by the school.” The 1998 amendment to FERPA makes it clear that this information isn’t private and may be shared with anyone.
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