The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Crime Data from Nation's College Campuses May Not Give Accurate Picture

Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 2/6/2006

Far from mere bean counting, hate crime data collection initiatives have sparked improvements to the overall response to hate violence in communities and on campus.

Moreover, civil rights groups say, data collection efforts are a demonstration of the seriousness that law enforcement agencies and campuses attach to addressing hate violence in the community.

"The data collection effort provides a measure of accountability for law enforcement agencies - and for college campuses," said Michael Lieberman, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Civil Rights Policy Planning Center.

Inconsistency in reporting can hamper accurate data collection and hinder law enforcement efficiency, however. Pointing out that hate crime data available from the Department of Education (DOE) directly conflicted with campus hate crime information collected by the FBI, last year more than 20 national groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Anti-Defamation League, and the American Association for University Women, called on legislators to make the Department of Education's hate crime categories identical to those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to the group's letter to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, discrepancies between these categories have resulted in "significant gaps in [DOE] data, substantial inconsistencies between FBI and [DOE] statistics and confusion for parents and students trying to obtain a more accurate sense of campus safety."

For example, while the FBI reported eight hate crimes at Northwestern University, eight at Ohio State University, six at the University of Connecticut, and five at Cornell, none of these crimes were reported by DOE, according to the letter.

More recently, a report by the Department of Justice asserts that the nation's colleges and universities are underreporting sexual assault on their campuses, with only about a third reporting crime data in a way fully consistent with federal laws.

"It is troubling that colleges may be misrepresenting how safe, or unsafe, their campuses are," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "Parents and students deserve to have as accurate a picture as possible of levels of crime on campuses. We urge colleges and government agencies to work to ensure inconsistencies in reporting do not continue to occur."

Under the Clery Act, each school is required to publish a report every year that contains three years worth of campus crime statistics and security policy statements.

The report asserts that "schools find it difficult to consistently interpret and apply the Federal reporting requirements, such as deciding which incidents to cite in the annual report, classifying crimes, and the like. Definitions, even of such terms as 'campus' and 'student,' are often a challenge."