A 19-Year-Old’s Murder Led To Federal Protections For College Students

Nineteen-year-old Lehigh University freshman Jeanne Clery was raped and murdered in her dorm room by then-sophomore, Josoph M. Henry, on April 5, 1986. Henry was burglarizing Jeanne’s room when she awoke; he then attacked her, slashing her neck with broken glass, beating her, biting her face and strangling her. 

A Pennsylvania trial court found Henry guilty on eight counts, including first-degree murder, rape and burglary. He was initially sentenced to death by electric chair but was given life without parole in 2002 in exchange for dropping all appeals.

Connie and Howard Clery, Jeanne’s parents, believed the crime in which they lost their youngest daughter was, in part, a consequence of “slipshod” campus security. For instance, Henry was able to enter Jeanne’s room after three locking doors on campus were propped open, and university police were prohibited from patrolling dorms. In the three years leading up to Jeanne’s death, there had been 38 violent crimes on Lehigh’s campus, more than half committed by Lehigh students against other students at the school. The university was not obligated to, and did not, report this data publicly. Connie and Howard said that their daughter never would have attended the university if the data had been public. 

Lehigh had a “rapidly escalating crime rate, which they didn’t tell anybody about,” the Clerys claimed to the Los Angeles Times in 1989. At the time, Lehigh described their security as “more than adequate” and said “you can’t prevent everything from happening.”

Connie and Howard sued the university for $25 million for negligence, breach of contract of implied habitability and misrepresentation. The case was ultimately settled out of court with a two-fold agreement: first, an undisclosed amount would be paid out by Lehigh to the Clerys, and second, the campus would implement agreed upon security measures by the 1989-90 academic year, for at least one year. This included installing electronic hardware on exterior doors of buildings in a specific dormitory complex, limiting entry into each dorm to a single exterior door and placing more staff at the complex to monitor the system. 

The Clerys pushed for greater transparency around campus crime statistics nationwide, forming a nonprofit called Security On Campus, Inc. (now the Clery Center) for that purpose in 1987. At the state level, Pennsylvania, where Jeanne was murdered, passed the College and University Security Information Act on May 26, 1988. The first-of-its-kind law required institutions of higher education to give crime statistics and details on security measures to students, staff and, upon request, prospective students and employees; failure to do so could result in a $10,000 penalty. Places like Tennessee and Los Angeles started working on similar legislation when the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act, or the “Clery Act,” took shape.  

On March 14, 1990, the House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education held a hearing about violent crimes on college campuses. The Clery Act, which had been modeled on Pennsylvania’s law, had been introduced in the House by William Goodling, a Republican Representative from Pennsylvania. It would require colleges and universities receiving federal financial aid to inform students and staff about on-campus crime and instruct students on campus security policies and crime prevention.

Connie and Howard testified in support of the Act alongside two college students who were raped on campus and the mother of another who was shot to death. “We’re here before you today to try to save lives and to cut down the victimizing that is going on on our college campuses,” Howard said. Connie told the subcommittee, “You would be saving lives all through the country. It could be someone you love and you know.” 

Their testimonies were supported by expert analysis from Security on Campus, Inc. counsel, Frank Carrington; American Council of Education’s Robert H. Atwell; Catholic University of America’s Father William J. Byron; Dorothy Siegel of the Towson State University Center for the Study and Prevention of Campus Violence; and Douglas Tuttle of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. 

On November 8, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Clery Act into law. Earlier that year, Connie and Howard were recognized by Bush for their work with the National Crime Victims Service Award.

Since the act was passed, it has been amended at least five times to, among other things, account for the Violence Against Women Act, make hazing a Clery-reportable crime and eliminate loopholes. Several universities have been found in violation in the last decade, including Michigan State University, University of California Berkeley and Liberty University, with Liberty receiving the largest fine on record yet at $14 million. In an over 100-page report, the Department of Education found that Liberty University had, among other things, discouraged students from reporting crimes, inadequately responded to sexual violence and failed to report criminal activity and dangerous incidents on campus.