Previously: COVID-19 & Clery FAQs
Over the past three weeks many of you have been responding to the concerns and worries of students, their families, fellow administrators and faculty, and your own loved ones in relation to COVID-19. You have been adjusting your work functions to support students and employees, and to respond to issues many of us have never dealt with before.
As institutions share their questions and concerns with us, we want to keep you updated on possible strategies, tips, and resources to use as you begin to settle in to our new, but hopefully temporary, normal:
Preparing for Remote Incident Reports
As students and employees have time away from campus and opportunity to think and reflect, they may decide that now is the time to make an incident report. Alternatively, some individuals might be returning to stressful or even harmful living situations in having to leave campus. Therefore, it is so important to remind folks of how and when they can report an alleged criminal offense or policy violation during this time.
- Remind your campus community how they can make a report or file a disciplinary complaint while remote (i.e. online reporting form, current contact information).
- Revisit your own procedures for sharing information, like providing your written explanation of rights and options for those reporting instances of dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking via email.
- Inform your campus community directly of the institutional resources that are always available to them, even when off campus; as well as local and national resources available to them while they are away, particularly if they are in a dangerous situation (see linked resources at the end of this post).
Disciplinary Proceedings
Campuses are currently determining how to best prioritize and balance the needs of individuals versus the needs of the whole community more than ever and campus disciplinary procedures are no exception. You may be making some difficult decisions regarding whether investigations and adjudication procedures continue at this time and, if so, how.
- Check out the Association of Student Conduct Administration’s daily chat series beginning this week and continuing for the next four where they are hosting discussions for conduct administrators across the country to brainstorm solutions as COVID-19 continues to impact all aspects of a campus’ functioning.
- Ensure your most up-to-date disciplinary proceedings policies and procedures are available through your institution’s website for student and employee cases of dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Proactively communicate with your community about how such procedures are impacted by current circumstances.
- Ask what folks need. We are all living in a great time of uncertainty and each individual may desire something very different in their own process—understanding what those needs are before adjusting policies and procedures will help you make those decisions.
Hate Crimes and Bias Incidents
Sadly, as COVID-19 has spread so also has racism towards Chinese-Americans and international students. During this time, you should make all students and employees aware of actions and behaviors that would constitute a violation of your institution’s bias-incident policy and those that could be classified as a hate crime under state or federal law, and encourage them to report such incidents using your remote reporting procedures.
- The Clery Act defines hate crimes specifically and not all actions that might be a violation of an institution’s bias-incident policy would necessarily qualify for categorization as a hate crime under the Clery Act or in an institution’s Clery crime statistics.
- Classifying incidents as hate crimes under the Clery Act is just one way to acknowledge bias or hate and should not be the starting or stopping point for colleges and universities in working to prevent, address, and respond to such actions.
- Review Clery Center’s Explaining Hate Crimes under the Clery Act to further understand distinctions between hate crimes and bias incidents and what you can do to encourage reporting of all incidents of hate at your institution.
- Proactively identify and share resources available to support community members experiencing discrimination (see linked resources at the end of this post).
Continue to connect and share with each other – institutions of higher education are a community navigating this together and can benefit from collaboration during this difficult time. Clery Center will be hosting a no-cost virtual space to talk through these and other challenges you’re facing at your institution, so please keep an eye out for registration information coming soon.
Additional Resources:
