The federal Clery Act requires colleges to report campus crime statistics in a timely manner, and accompany those statistics with pertinent safety advisements — but apparently Yale didn’t get the memo. The Ivy League school’s been fined $165,000 for failing to report its local crime numbers.
In a letter, the Department of Education called the violations “serious and numerous,” Newser reported. Among the crimes that went unreported: Four sex offenses, ranging from rape to assault to fondling, Newser said. Each of those failures-to-report carried a $27,500 fine, the Huffington Post said.
Yale also failed to include various policy statements that are required by law in its crime reports, Newser said. The school was also fined $27,500 because its didn’t make public the crime numbers for Yale-New Haven Hospital.
The investigation into Yale’s compliance with Clery spanned seven years, Newser said.
“Students and employees must be able to rely on the institution’s reported statistics,” said one Department of Education officials, in the Newser report.
Yale’s response to the fines? It’s too much.Yale is dedicated to safety, university officials said, in a statement reported by Newser.
“[But we] believe that the department’s imposition of maximum fines is not warranted based on the particular situations that resulted in findings of violations,” the university said, in a statement. Yale officials have asked that the Department of Education “reconsider and lower the fine,” Newser said.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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