The Clery Act

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act) was passed by Congress in 1998. This law was originally passed in 1990 as the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act. The bill was named for Jeanne Clery, a Lehigh University freshman who was raped and murdered in her dorm room in 1986.

In summary, this law mandates that institutions of higher education provide timely warnings of crimes that might represent a threat to members of the campus community. It also requires that these institutions publicize a number of their security policies as well as requiring that they collect and publicly disseminate their crime statistics for a three-year period.

This act was promoted and lobbied for by the parents of Jeanne Clery who have also set up a website for information on campus safety called Security on Campus Inc.