How colleges and universities confront campus crime changed forever with the April 5, 1986 murder of Jeanne Ann Clery in her Lehigh University residence hall room. Jeanne’s parents, Howard and Connie, soon discovered a history of campus violence and security problems that students and parents had not been told, not only at Lehigh, but at schools across the United States.
The Clery family joined other families who had experienced campus violence to spearhead a successful effort, first in Pennsylvania, then in nine other states, to enact laws that require public and private institutions of higher education to report campus crime statistics. In 1987, the Clerys also founded a nonprofit victim-assistance-and-advocacy organization, Security on Campus, Inc., using money from a settlement with Lehigh University.
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April 5, 1986 was one of those days that changes everything, or at least, that is how many in higher education have come to feel. This was the day that Jeanne Clery was “tortured, raped, sodomized and murdered2 at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. This event, and Jeanne Clery’s parents’ response to it, has made lasting impressions on campus safety. The Clerys’ response to this tragedy resulted in the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act or Act). Whether one agrees with the necessity or effectiveness of this legislation, or whether it has positively impacted campus safety or not, everyone can agree that the Clery Act has increased awareness of crime on American college campuses. The mere fact that a special edition of this law review is being devoted to campus safety illustrates the impact that the Clery Act has had on higher education. The Act certainly has raised the awareness about campus crime and campus-safety issues, and the commentary about it in the higher-education, legal, and popular press has been extensive.
Elected officials at all levels of government pass laws in response to issues that rise to the top of their policy agenda. Laws serve two functions: (1) symbolic and (2) substantive. The symbolic function of law includes such goals as reaffirming cherished values and showing that “something is being done” about a perceived social problem. The Clery Act1 is one such law. It appeases the interests of those who advocated for, or perhaps were interested in, its passage, regardless of its substantive impact. The substantive function of law, on the other hand, involves introducing changes that have demonstrable utility — changes that essentially help to alleviate or solve the problem the law addresses.
This Article explores the evolving law of bystanders in the campus-safety context. In the college or university setting, bystanders include students, professors, and other college or university personnel who hear or see violence in the making, such as verbal and physical harassment or related conflicts that may escalate into assault or battery. Bystanders also include those persons possessing information about individuals in trouble or potentially volatile situations who, by taking appropriate steps, can help avert violence. As demonstrated in numerous media reports of recent college, university, and school violence incidents, there is often substantial evidence before a violent event occurs that could have been used to prevent it. Typically, bystanders with information about a potentially volatile situation do not know what to do. Taking no action runs the risk that violence will occur and individuals will be hurt. Precipitous action on a perceived threat, however, risks stigmatizing college students who might never become violent and are simply acting out.
The number-one student risk factor in the minds of most college administrators now is alcohol use, and to a certain extent, the use of other drugs. Alcohol has been a risk factor in a number of prominent student deaths, including the untimely death of Scott Krueger at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Alcohol is heavily associated with secondary risks, such as sexual assault and student riots over changes in alcohol policies. Highrisk alcohol use is also a major factor in self-inflicted injury. The Authors anticipate that in the near term, however, attention paid to suicide and other serious forms of self-inflicted injury will continue to increase and that these concerns may begin to gain prominence.
The Appalachian School of Law (ASL) will survive. After a year that included the most devastating tragedies imaginable, the dedication of the faculty, staff, and students has ensured the success of the institution. Applications have increased more than twenty-five percent over last year, and admissions are up. We have hired six new highly qualified full-time faculty members and two visiting faculty members. The three students who were injured have recovered and are doing well academically. We continue to work toward full ABA accreditation, having received provisional accreditation in February 2001. Although we all hope that nothing like this will ever happen again, the lessons learned by ASL, and the example set by ASL, may help another school when faced with a similar tragedy.
On Wednesday, January 16, 2002, former student Peter Odighizuwa shot and killed Dean L. Anthony Sutin, Professor Thomas F. Blackwell, and a first-year student, Angela Dales. Odighizuwa also shot and injured three other female students. This news spread rapidly throughout the community of American law schools, which reacted with horror, grief, then support, assistance, and empathy. All classes were cancelled until the following week.
A trial court in Florida is hearing a case concerning an alleged assault and battery. A pro-life activist, Lisa Swanson, is suing Cynthia Matthews for causing her severe head injuries. The incident that gave rise to the conflict took place during Lisa’s campaign at a local mall. After Lisa approached Cynthia and handed her a pro-life flyer, the two women engaged in conversation. Cynthia eventually revealed that she had once had an abortion. When Lisa became abrasive and started shouting insults in Cynthia’s face, Cynthia pushed Lisa away. As Lisa fell, her head struck a hard object and she lost consciousness. At the hospital, she received sixteen stitches to the back of her head and currently is undergoing physical therapy to regain full motor skills. Cynthia claims she never meant to injure Lisa; she was simply trying to get Lisa to give her some space.
In 1996, fulfilling his campaign pledge to “end welfare as we know it,” President William Jefferson Clinton signed into existence the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). The PRWORA replaced the former federal system of welfare, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). As its title reflects, TANF is designed around the concept of temporary need, with emphasis on short time limits for assistance and transitioning recipients into the work force. Although the key word in the new welfare scheme is “temporary,” women who receive temporary assistance are subject to conditions that may require them to permanently alter their lives. Women applying for temporary public assistance under the PRWORA must cooperate in establishing the paternity of their children or be denied relief.
A few years back, a distinguished Florida judge complained to me that law-review scholarship was largely irrelevant to what he did as a judge. His view is shared by other notable jurists, who lament the decline of scholarship that is useful, or even understandable, to the practicing profession.
In this symposium, we hope to “swim against the current” by publishing a series of articles that the judiciary and the bar will find useful. When we solicited writers, we invited them to address legal issues relevant to the appellate bar but also welcomed them to share their personal insights into appellate practice. What follows is a combination of both.
The most important responsibility of an appellate court is to determine whether errors of sufficient magnitude occurred in the lower court or tribunal to warrant disturbing the judgment or ruling on appeal. The second most important responsibility, in my opinion, is to provide explanations for the decisions in the form of written opinions. In this Article, I seek to provide some insight into how judges write opinions, as well as to provide some insight into the processes and procedures in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In Part II, I will discuss the framework of the Eleventh Circuit and how appeals are handled within the Circuit. Part III contains a discussion concerning the decisions that are made with respect to opinions, such as whether the opinion should be published and whether a summary affirmance is appropriate. In Part IV, I discuss the structure of opinions, the style of opinions, and the audience. Finally, in Part V, I discuss what happens after opinions are circulated to the other judges of the panel and how opinions are released by the clerk.