In light of the apparent cover-up by the leadership at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) of a student rape and murder on campus, Congress should amend the Jeanne Clery Act. Specifically, a whistleblower protection section needs to be added to this landmark  sunshine  law

Simonds, Beth Anne

Taylor III, Porcher L.

English

University of Richmond

University of RichmondUR Scholarship RepositorySchool of Professional and Continuing StudiesFaculty Publications School of Professional and Continuing Studies2007Clery Act Needs Whistleblower ProtectionPorcher L. Taylor IIIUniversity of Richmond, ptaylor@richmond.eduBeth Anne SimondsUniversity of Richmond, bsimonds@richmond.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/spcs-faculty-publicationsPart of the Law Commons, and the Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Professional and Continuing Studies at UR Scholarship Repository. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UR ScholarshipRepository. For more information, please contact scholarshiprepository@richmond.edu.Recommended CitationTaylor, Porcher L., III, and Beth Anne Simonds. "Clery Act Needs Whistleblower Protection." Campus Safety, 2007, 72.Clery Act Needs Whistleblower Protection BY PORCHER L. TAYLOR, Ill, J.D. AND BETH ANNE SIMONDS Porcher L. Taylor, Ill, J.D., is an associate professor in the Uni-versity of Richmond's School of Continuing Studies and a former U.S. Army JAG attor-ney. He teaches business ethics in the Robins School of Busi-ness and can be reached at ptaylor@richmond.edu. Beth Anne Simonds is Services Captain for the University of Richmond Police Department and responsible for Clery Act compliance. She spearheaded, organized and managed Vir-ginia ACLEA's first statewide Clery conference in January 2006. More than 60 campus safety officials attended the conference. She has more than 17 years of service in the university's police department and can be reached at bsi-monds@richmond.edu. n light of the apparent cover-up by the leadership at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) of a student rape and murder on campus, Congress should amend the Jeanne Clery Act. Specifically, a whistleblower protec-tion section needs to be added to this landmark "sunshine" law. All campus safety leaders and managers must ac-knowledge that every campus should be hospitable to good-faith whistleblowers 24/ 7. We suspect, how-ever, that in the EMU case, potential whistleblowers who understood the facts of the crime were not en-couraged to come forward. Instead, only after anoth-er student had been arrested for the attack and more than two long months went by did the campus lead-ership tell students and the public that the female victim had been raped and murdered in her dorm room. Prior to the suspect's arrest, EMU administra-tors insisted foul play was not suspected, even as the police were investigating several people. If a whistleblower provision had been embedded in the Clery Act, EMU students and the public would have been alerted in a timely fashion to the imminent threat on campus. Additionally, the fami-ly of the female victim might have been spared some of the trauma it continues to experience. EMU Whistleblowers Might Have Come Forward Can we not believe that someone down the cam-pus chain of command earnestly wanted to get the truth out, but might have been suppressed or felt suppressed from doing so? Might there have been a heroic whistleblower in the wings like Sherron Watkins, the former Enron vice president who ex-posed a corrupt company to investors and the nation? To this day, she has paid a high price for her sterling integrity, in part because the whistleblow-er protection provision in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) did not become law until about a year after Enron's implosion. SOX is the historic corporate reform law that holds senior business leaders per-sonally accountable for accounting and securities fraud and crime. Most significantly, Congress, in legislating SOX, gave its whistleblower protection section lots of enforcement teeth. Indeed, if a manager or leader in corporate America retaliates against, intimi-dates or harasses a good-faith whistleblower, that intimidator can get up to 10 years in federal prison and/ or a $250,000 fine. Congress reasoned that potential retaliation in the business world, thanks to the likes of Enron and WorldCom, had now become tantamount to orga-nized crime figures threatening grand jury and trial witnesses. The really big caveat is that Congress broadly defined "retaliation." We read that section of the law to mean that if a manager so much as sneezes at a whistleblower, he or she might be prosecuted. University Employees Need SOX Protections The EMU tragedy is a watershed moment for Clery, given its unprecedented circumstances. Sadly, the time may have arrived for Congress to treat cam-puses like corporate America and amend the Clery Act to have SOX-like whistleblower protection. Campus safety personnel must resist any pres-sure from senior campus leaders to impede or water down Clery compliance. They should not allow their college/university presidents to become disen-gaged from Clery Act compliance under any cir-cumstances. John A. Fallon III , the fired president of EMU, claims his subordinates did not tell him about the evidence of a homicide. Additionally, as a result of investigations of the cover-up by the uni-versity's board of regents and the Department of Education, the school's vice president for student affairs and the public safety director were fired. In the meantime, if you are already on a campus that would welcome a whistleblower that sought to uncover a Clery Act violation, then your campus is well on the way to ensuring that an EMU-type case does not rear its ugly head on the campus safety landscape. It will be very difficult for your campus to ever stumble over Clery compliance at that moral altitude. Indeed, we owe nothing less to our parent and student stakeholders in helping them make in-formed decisions about campuses. EDITOR'S NOTE: "Ni. I Sea Jr features the views and opinions of campus stakehokfers - ~om police lo administrator.>. teaclilng S!aff 10 students, consultants to vendofs. The vfel'/s e;<pressed are solely lliosa of the author. If you WQUld Uke lo submtt an ai1lde or respond lo someorie else's. E-mall:robln.grey@tlobil.com;or\'.irlte:Carnpvs Safety, Attn: Editor, 3520 Challenger St .. Torrance, CA 90503. 72 CAMPUS SAFETY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 www.campussafetymagazine.com 

Clery Act Needs Whistleblower Protection

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Clery Act Needs Whistleblower Protection

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