Jeanne Clery, murdered in her dorm room, April 5, 1986

During the early morning hours of April 5, 1986, our daughter, Jeanne Ann, was tortured, raped, sodomized and murdered in her dormitory room at Lehigh University. Her killer was a drug and alcohol abuser, a Lehigh student whom Jeanne had never met. He gained access to her room by proceeding, unopposed, through three propped-open doors, each of which should have been locked. He was convicted and sentenced to death.

The aftermath of this crime became for us a learning experience that changed our lives.

"Our daughter died because of what she didn't know"-Connie & Howard Clery

We learned that institutional response to such tragedies could involve callousness, coverups and stonewalling. Lehigh officials publicly passed off Jeanne's torture/murder as an "aberration". The college, in an ill-conceived attempt to protect its "image", produced a self-serving "report", written by one of its trustees, K.P. Pendleton, which concluded that there was no negligence on the part of the university and that "...our present safety policies were complete"; this, despite the administration's knowledge of prior violent crimes on the campus and that there had been 181 reports of propped-open doors in Jeanne's dormitory in the four months prior to her death.

We learned that crime on campus was one of the best-kept secrets in the country. Until 1988, only four percent of America's colleges reported crime statistics to the FBI, or, generally speaking, to students, parents or anyone else.

We learned that the true picture of campus crime is startling, even horrifying; some examples: In 1987, there were at least 31 murders, more than 1,500 armed robberies and 13,000 physical assaults on college campuses nationwide. A recent survey, cited by the U.S. House of representatives, reported that thirty-eight percent of college women questioned had either been raped or were victims of felony sexual assaults.

We learned, to our great relief, that the law does not tolerate willful indifference to the personal safety of college students. After learning that Lehigh had unilaterally absolved itself of blame in Jeanne's death, we had no choice but to turn to the courts, suing the college for negligent failure of security and failure to warn of foreseeable dangers on campus. In 1988 Lehigh settled with us and agreed to materially enhance security on its campus. We founded, in living memory of Jeanne, Security On Campus, Inc., the first national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the prevention of criminal violence at colleges and to assisting campus victim nationwide.

Memorial plaque placed outside Jeanne's Lehigh dormitory Stoughton Hall

Our daughter died because of what she didn't know. The first major initiative of Security of Campus was to ensure that the same fate did not befall other students. In 1987 we began efforts towards enacting laws requiring colleges and universities nationwide to make available, to current and prospective students, complete information about violent campus crimes and drug and alcohol offenses, and, in addition, to provide information about security procedures already in effect.

We learned, to our gratification, that legislators were more than willing to act in response to our efforts. Pennsylvania became the first state to pass mandatory reporting legislation; nine states followed with bills addressing that issue. In 1990 President George Bush signed the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, now known as the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, requiring all colleges receiving federal funds to report crime statistics.

Our credo is simple: crime awareness can prevent campus victimization. This has been proven to work in practice. Chief Michael G. Shanahan of the University of Washington Police Department established, in the late 1980's, a campus crime awareness program, including publishing statistics in the student newspaper. By 1990 he was able to report that violent crime had been reduced by more than 50%, stating: "much of the credit goes to community's increased awareness of crime."

We learned from the outcome of our lawsuit against Lehigh that campus administrators have a duty to protect their students from crime. In addition, we became convinced that such litigation may be the single most effective way to pressure academic officialdom to: 1) recognize campus violence as the threat that it has become; and, 2) do something about it.

In 1989, we established, as a part of Security On Campus, the Campus Victims Litigation Program. This, the first program of its kind in the nation, has developed a database of case law in civil actions by victims of campus crimes and victims of administrative coverups of such crimes. This, and other legal information, is available to victims themselves, their attorneys and to all other parties who wish to do something constructive about preventing campus crime.

We are convinced that much of the current epidemic of campus crime and violence can be curtailed and we intend to continue our efforts to this end. We can do nothing less in memory of Jeanne.

Connie & Howard Clery
co-founders Security On Campus, Inc.