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Law & the Media in Texas — FOI Clery Act

Freedom of Information

The Clery Act

This federal law requires colleges and universities to reveal information on crimes committed on their campuses. The information must be readily available and statistics must be published every year on the schools’ web sites.

The act was passed in 1990 as the Student Right-to-Know Act. It was amended and renamed in 1998 as the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act.

Jeanne Ann Clery was raped and killed in a dormitory room at Lehigh University in 1986. Her parents pushed for the passage of the law.

The law is tied to the federal student aid program and therefore applies to most colleges and universities, public and private. Schools that fail to comply with the law can be penalized up to $25,000 for each violation and face loss of federal funds. The law is administered by the United States Department of Education.