In 2018, while I was in college, I became a victim of sexual assault. For the following several months went through the formal reporting and investigation processes, followed by the university hearing. Shortly after was when I first learned about the Clery Act. 

Colleges and universities are required, by the Clery Act, to record and publish their campus’s statistics of crime, including sexual violence. The purpose of this 1990 law is to promote transparency around the safety of different campuses.

When the next year’s Clery Act crime and safety report for my university was published, I braced myself to see what happened to me represented by a little number under the “sex offense” category. But to my surprise, when I opened the report, the sex offense category said 0. 

I learned that the school did not have to include it in their reports because the assault did not fit into the very specific and limited jurisdiction of the law that only includes incidents that occur on campus-owned and controlled property or on very specific and limited noncampus property.

It felt as though everything I had just gone through was erased and replaced by a 0. A 0 that did not represent how the campus actually was and felt to me and many others. Further, schools acknowledge that “campus life” expands beyond physical classrooms or dormitories. Their reports should reflect that. 

This petition is a call for increased transparency around sexual assaults that are reported to institutions.