University Protects Victims’ Anonymity, Emails Detailed Crime Reports to Entire Campus Community
Citing their duty to protect victims of sexual assault, the University Police Department (UPD) emailed faculty, staff, and students a detailed crime report of an incident that took place two days ago. Per laws that exist to protect the anonymity of victims, the email included information such as the time, location, circumstances of the crime, a physical description of the perpetrator and a detailed sequence of the events of the crime. The email also described the nature of the assault and the victim’s response, but the victim’s name was withheld.
This email was sent in accordance with the Clery Act, a federal law that mandates the reporting of crime by universities that receive federal funding. Established in 1990 following the murder of a student at Lehigh University, the Clery Act requires universities to supply timely warnings, crime statistics, crime logs, and annual security reports to the general public.
“Although there are no specific requirements for what information should be included in a timely warning outside of the time of the report and the time and general location of the crime, we find that chronicling the crime in excruciating detail is the key to reaching the student body,” a representative for UPD said. “How else can we prevent crime besides exploiting peoples’ interest in graphic details?”
A victim whose assault was described in a Clery act email last month agreed to share her thoughts on the university’s email structure. “I mean, it was a little awkward when my roommate jokingly asked if I knew anything about the assault mentioned in the email since our exact apartment complex was mentioned,” she said. “My mom called me because she saw the email posted on an Aggie Parents Facebook group. I haven’t even had time yet to figure out how I’m going to tell her, and I definitely don’t want her to know so much about what happened to me.”
Anne Guerren, a sexual assault victim advocate, offered her thoughts on the policy. “I understand its intention to promote safety,” she said. “But as a sexual assault survivor myself, I dread receiving the university’s Clery Act emails. It dredges up painful memories.”
The crime alert emails also include a statement advising the community that sexual assault is never a victim’s fault before going on to list fifteen steps all people should take to avoid sexual assault. “That’s great and all,” Guerren said, “if they weren’t inviting the entire community to pass judgment and speculate by publishing irrelevant and unnecessary details.”
— Heldenfalls
Once an average student eons ago, Heldenfalls committed some unknown sin against the Aggie gods and has since been burdened with a strange punishment: She is forced to carry her backpack to the top of the infamous Heldenfels stairs only to fall back to the bottom again over and over for all eternity. Though this may seem like a horrible fate, the philosophy department argues that Heldenfalls’ endless task represents the absurd heroism of the human condition. Each atom of that backpack, each mineral flake of those concrete stairs, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a woman’s heart. One must imagine Heldenfalls happy.