NEWS
The Clarion
iNbo SERIES Your right to know. Crime Logs
BY RACHEL MIKAELSEN
Knowledge is power. The more
you know about what goes on in soceity
the better citizen you can be. The same
goes for your role in college. Though
students may feel that they are in the
dark when it comes to what really goes
on behind the scenes at Brevard or any
other campus, documents exist that a
school must provide for their review.
These documents give you infor
mation such as campus crime statistics,
and how the school spends money. A
series of articles will appear in the next
several issues of The Clarion, inform
ing Brevard students of their freedom
to information and ways to use the law
to protect this right and use it to their
advantage.
The first aspect we are going to
explore is the right to information on
campus crime. Crime invades every
college, some more than others.
The Crime Awareness Campus
Security Act of 1990 states that begin
ning September 1,1992, schools receiv
ing federal aid, grants, student loans and
federal work study are required to pub
lish and distribute an annual security
report containing;
1. Campus security policies and
procedures.
2. Law enforcement status and
authority of security personnel includ
ing working relationship with state and
local police departments.
3. Description of crime prevention
and drug and alcohol abuse programs
available to the community and stu
dents.
4. A listing of any policies regard
ing law enforcement relating to drug and
alcohol use.
The law only requires that “on
campus” occurrences be reported to the
student body.
On May 28,1999, the Chronicle
of Higher Education published crime
statistics from 483 colleges with 5,000
or more students enrolled. The statis
tics cover 1996-97 school year tol997-
98 school year. The Chronicle reported
Offenses 96
■97 to 97-98
Occurances
Murder
-3L6%
19-13
Forcible Sex Offenses
+ .4 %
1,049-1,053
Non-Forcible Sex Offense
-29.5 %
132-93
Robbery
-9.2 %
980-890
Aggravated Assault
-.8 %
2,087-2,071
a number of statistics as noted in the
associated graph.
Many times the campus paper will
publish a report similar to the one above
that would pertain to their own school,
providing the student body with crime
statistics on a regular basis. Any one
interested in the crime logs may make
a written or oral request to the Dean of
Campus Life.
Also under the FOI open records
laws exists a Campus Sexual Assault
Victims’ Bill of Rights. This Bill of
Rights allows students and journalists
to be aware of what goes on during cases
involving sexual assault. The law says.
garding the outcome of on-campus dis
ciplinary action to both accused and
accuser.” An administration is not re
quired to release the information to the
student body, but interested students
may contact the accused and accuser to
inquire if they wish for the news to be
known. The law applies to all institu
tions receiving federal aid. A written or
oral request may be made to the Dean
of Campus life.
Crime statistics alert in coming
students of the environment in where
they will be living. Reviewing crime
logs can allow students and their par
ents to prepare safety precautions and
‘a school must provide information re- behaviors.
Court approves appeal
for KSU yearbook ease
Freedom of Speech
valuable to education
BY MATT BERGER U-WIRE
(DC BUREAU)
(U-WIRE) WASHINGTON —
The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
has agreed Monday to rehear the case
of whether college administrators can
censor student publications after a three
judge panel ruled in favor of the school
earlier this fall.
The court, located in Cincinnati,
agreed to rehear the case against Ken
tucky State University, which confis
cated the Thorobred yearbook in
1994 because
of poor qual
ity. The three-
judge panel
ruled the
school had the
right to confis
cate the books,
ruling against two former KSU stu
dents.
Circuit Judge Alan Norris ruled
in September that it was reasonable
for the school to
want to maintain its image by
confiscating the yearbooks. Univer
sity officials said they confiscated the
books because of “undisputedly poor
quality” and a purple cover.
Mark Goodman, executive di
rector of the Student Press Law Cen
ter, said the decision was encourag
ing for student media.
“The only thing you can assume
is that a significant number of judges
on the court agreed that thi; decision
raised questions that prompted them
to reconsider the facts,
said.
Two former KSU students, Capri
Coffer, the yearbook’s editor, and
Charles Kincaid, a member of the
school’s newspaper and a yearbook
purchaser, sued the university after
the school’s vice president for student
affairs, Betty Gibson, confiscated the
yearbooks. She claimed it had a
“vague theme” and was upset by in
clusion of photos unrelated to the
school community - including Bill
Clinton and Ross Perot.
The adviser of the yearbook at
the time, Laura Cullen, was trans
ferred to another position within the
university on the day the yearbooks
were received. .
In September, the court relied on
the 1988 Supreme Court decision of
Hazelwood School District vs.
Kuhlmeier, which upheld censorship
of high school media. But Goodman
said there are distinctions between
public high schools and colleges.
“The fundamental problem with
the September ruling was the appli
cation of high school censorship stan
dard to the college environment,”
Goodman said. “That’s such a disturb
ing notion.” He said most courts have
worked hard to create a difference
between colleges and high schools.
“Nowhere is free expression
more important than on university
campuses,” Goodman said. Officials
from Kentucky State University did
not return requests for comment.
Goodman BY RACHEL MIKAELSEN
As Americans, we are given cer
tain inalienable rights that should
never change with time. One of these
rights is the freedom of speech and
expression. The First Amendment
guarantees us this, as should our
school system. Censorship acts as a
If young people are to become
responsible citizens, they must
experience displays of this
democracy,..
way of control and manipulation
when exercised over a student body.
Censorship comes in all kinds of dis
tasteful forms: administration flat out
not allowing free expression, with
holding financial support, threats or
editing publications such as school
news papers, for material that may not
place the institution in a positive light.
All of these methods create an un
comfortable environment where stu
dents may fear speaking up for their
own defense. Censorship hinders the
most important element of learning:
the creation of new ideas. What is the
purpose of learning, if students can
not share their knowledge
and opinions with others?
Our government was
founded on freedom and
democracy. If young
people are to become re
sponsible citizens, they
must experience displays
of this democracy in order
to appreciate it. A school
that censors its publica
tions goes against this idea of free
dom and democracy and the lessons
cannot be learned. College students
need to be aware that censorship ex
ists, in order to prevent it from hap
pening. Awareness is the key to pre
vention.
a responsible^
r campus citizen,
^^^^S^dent Governm^^