Families, advocates walk Capitol Hill to advance hazing prevention legislation
July 29, 2022
Washington, D.C. – Parents who lost children to hazing, as well as the leaders of anti-hazing advocacy groups met with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle this week to promote legislation that seeks to prevent hazing in higher education.
Parents, Clery Center, and StopHazing with Representative Alan S. Lowenthal, co-sponsor of the REACH Act.
The Report and Educate About Campus Hazing (REACH) Act is a bipartisan and bicameral bill (H.R. 2525/S.744) that would require colleges and universities to disclose and take action to prevent hazing incidents on their campuses. The bill defines hazing in federal law; calls for higher education institutions to include hazing incidents as crime statistics in Clery Act Annual Security Reports (ASRs); and mandates ongoing educational and comprehensive research-based programming on hazing for campus stakeholders.
Among those who met with lawmakers were Julie and Gary DeVercelly, Sr., parents of Gary, Jr. who was killed in a fraternity hazing ritual in 2007; Cindy Hippps, mother of Tucker Hipps who was killed in 2014, Kim and TJ Burch, parents of Nolan who was killed in 2014, Marie Andre, mother of George Desdunes who was killed in 2011, and Eric and Linda Oakes, parents of Adam who was killed in 2021.
Parents, Clery Center, and StopHazing with Representative Lucy McBath, co-sponsor of the REACH Act.
“As 2022 marks the fifteenth anniversary of Gary’s death and we celebrate the beautiful life he lived, we are emboldened in our commitment to get the REACH Act passed,” the DeVercellys said. “We have spent many long, hot days walking the Hill in D.C. and many early mornings on calls with legislators, sharing our family’s tragedy. But we aren’t just raising awareness, we are offering a solution. Please honor Gary’s memory and join us.”
Joining the DeVercellys and other parents of hazing victims were students, as well as the leaders of three groups — Clery Center, StopHazing and SAFE Campuses, LLC — that have worked to prevent hazing and advance the REACH Act. The advocates had more than 40 scheduled meetings with lawmakers and their staffs, as well as more than 25 drop-in sessions, to share personal stories about the harmful impacts of hazing and how federal legislation is integral to preventing it and keeping students across the country safe.
Parents, Clery Center, and StopHazing with Senator Amy Klobuchar – lead sponsor of the REACH Act.
“Listening to the incredibly brave families share their stories was a painful reminder that while we wait for federal legislation to address hazing, lives continue to be lost. We spoke with many members of Congress who recognized that the REACH Act is long overdue and who are committed to helping us get this bill passed,” says Jessica Mertz, Executive Director of the Clery Center.
According to the National Study of Student Hazing, 55% of college students participating in clubs, teams and organizations experience hazing. Nearly every year since the mid-1900s, at least one student has been killed due to hazing.
The study’s co-author is Elizabeth Allan, professor of higher education at the University of Maine, Principal of StopHazing and director of the Hazing Prevention Consortium. Allan says hazing in higher education is a campus-wide issue that results in a spectrum of harm. Given that it is also a nationwide problem, she says federal legislation is needed to help address it.
“The REACH Act will strengthen campus hazing prevention with a clear definition of hazing, consistency and transparency in documenting incidents, and education about hazing and how to prevent it in colleges and universities,” Allan says.
The delegation of parents, students and experts that visited the capital this week represents the largest coordinated effort to talk to lawmakers in support of REACH, reflecting growing grassroots and public demand for accountability and prevention of hazing. More than 30 organizations have endorsed the act and hundreds of individuals have submitted advocacy letters to their respective legislators.
For more information about REACH, please visit: https://stophazing.org/policy/reach/ |
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Title IX Released
The U.S. Department of Education released its Title IX Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on June 23, 2022, the 50th Anniversary of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
Summary of Major Provisions of the Department of Education’s Title IX Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
Fact Sheet: U.S. Department of Education’s 2022 Proposed Amendments to its Title IX Regulations
Clery Center is working closely to analyze these proposed rules and will provide further commentary in the coming weeks. Click here to learn more about Title IX and how it intersects with the Clery Act.
Over the next 60 days, the public can submit comments for consideration before the proposed rules are finalized and published. Comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov. The comment period is an important time for stakeholders to work for further enhancement of Title IX. |
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- Five (5) free registrations that can be applied to any Clery Center training or workshop:
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- One (1) annual security report review* per Membership year
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*Please note that if your ASR has multiple campuses, even if the information is centralized into a single ASR, the review will be for the Member campus only (typically the main campus). Members may still submit an ASR that includes information on other separate campuses if that's the way it is designed, but feedback in the report will only be for the Member campus. If you want Member benefits to be specific to a separate campus, please make sure to name that campus as the member in the application.
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With fines of up to $71,545 per Clery Act violation and rising every year, compliance is an issue no college or university can afford to put off.
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Campus Hate Crime Response Requires Diligence
Recent surges in hate incidents, on college campuses and beyond, have renewed conversations nationally about what constitutes a hate crime and what can be done to best respond to and prevent such occurrences.
In the past month alone, thirty-six bomb threats have been made towards Historically Black Colleges and Universities, filling the campus communities with fear. While the FBI has made progress in identifying the suspects, the impact will be long-lasting. “Ryan Young, executive assistant director of the Intelligence Branch at the FBI, said that the bomb threats made to HBCUs and historically Black churches are the agency’s top priority,” wrote Ariana Figueroa in the Virginia Mercury. Last month the Department of Education announced that HBCUs may now apply for grants under Project School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV) as well as other federal resources to help improve mental health programs and campus safety. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a press release, “Today’s announcement will improve access to Project SERV grants for HBCUs as these institutions work to address students’ mental health needs, shore up campus security, and restore learning environments so that they can get back to doing what they do best—educating the next generation of great leaders.” Measures like this are certainly a step in the right direction, acknowledging the crucial support and resources needed to adequately address harm of this nature.
But despite this evident increase in and awareness of incidents of hate and bias, it remains a controversial and often divisive issue on college campuses. Colleges revere academic freedom and feel it grounds the purpose of higher education: to challenge thinking and, as a result, encourage debate of ideas and foster personal growth. However, some use this ideal to justify teachings in classrooms or personal statements that are racist, homophobic, or dangerous.
This also raises questions about whether hate crimes as defined today adequately address the ways in which bias and hate show up in daily life and the impact those actions may have.
For example, the Clery Act derives its definitions from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines to determine what gets classified as a hate crime. This means that the nature of the incident must align with one of the identified criminal categories and there must be evidence that the crime was committed by a perpetrator due to their bias towards the victim grounded in one of eight protected categories: race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, national origin, or religion.
This is an extremely narrow definition and even more narrow threshold to meet, especially for a campus. Classifying incidents as hate crimes is important for gaining an accurate picture of what violence looks like as well as acknowledging the serious nature of actions that take place that are criminal acts; however, much of what occurs on a campus does not neatly fit into a criminal category with a clear, intended victim. Rather, public restroom stalls are vandalized with slurs, anonymous Twitter accounts make hateful statements, or unaffiliated strangers make bomb threats, of which the seriousness and validity can be difficult for a campus to evaluate.
Clery Center resources like Explaining Hate Crimes Under the Clery Act and collaborative projects like Combating Hate Crimes on College and University Campuses offer support to institutions of higher education looking to further refine their hate crime and/or bias-incident response policies, remembering that counting an incident as a Clery crime statistic is only one part of the puzzle. Schools should also look at their institution’s bias-related policies to identify how they will respond to incidents that may not be categorized as a hate crime by definition. Identifying what behaviors are incongruent with an institution’s mission and values, educating the entire campus community about why that is, and allocating resources to support those harmed will create meaningful change. |
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