Title IX and the Clery Act: Student Misconduct and Sexual Harassment Laws

Title IX and the Clery Act: Student Misconduct and Sexual Harassment Laws

The Clery Act requires your school to publish crime statistics every year. Title IX requires them to investigate sexual misconduct allegations. When you are accused, you are not just facing an investigation – you are becoming a data point in two different federal compliance systems. Your case will appear in the Annual Security Report that goes to prospective students and their parents. Your outcome affects whether the school looks like it is taking sexual assault seriously. Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to tell you what nobody else will: the institution’s compliance needs are now intertwined with your fate, and those needs create pressure to find you responsible.

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act sounds like a consumer protection law. That is exactly what it is. The law requires colleges and universities that receive federal funding to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses. Schools must publish an Annual Security Report containing three years of crime statistics, security policies, and procedures. What students facing Title IX allegations do not understand is how this statistics requirement creates institutional pressure that works against them. Finding you responsible for sexual misconduct is good for the school’s compliance posture. Not finding responsibility might make the school look like it ignores complaints.

Todd Spodek founded this firm on one principle: students deserve to understand exactly what they are facing before they make any decisions. What you are facing under the combined weight of the Clery Act and Title IX is a system where your case serves institutional compliance needs, not the search for truth. The school needs statistics that demonstrate appropriate response to sexual misconduct. You are not a student accused of misconduct who deserves a fair investigation. You are a compliance metric that needs to be processed.

The Statistics Machine

Here is the thing that most students do not understand about the Clery Act and how it affects their Title IX case. The law dosent just require schools to track crime statistics. It requires them to publish those statistics annualy in a report that goes to current students, prospective students, employees, and the Department of Education. Schools that fail to report accurately face fines of up to $69,733 per violation. That is not a theoretical penalty. Schools have been fined millions of dollars for underreporting.

Think about what this means for your case. If you are accused of sexual assault, the school must decide wheather to include that allegation in their statistics. If they find you responsible, the incident gets counted as a founded case of sexual misconduct – demonstrating the school takes these matters seriousely. If they find you not responsible, the statistics might look like the school is failing to respond appropriatly to complaints. The institutional pressure runs in one direction: toward findings of responsibility.

Your case is not just about what happened between you and the complainant. Your case is about what the school’s statistics will look like in next year’s Annual Security Report. This conflict of interest is built into the structure of how these two laws interact. The Clery Act creates pressure to demonstrate accountability. Title IX creates the mechanism for that accountability. You are caught in between.

Here is the part that makes this especialy problematic. The people investigating your Title IX case are often the same people responsible for Clery compliance. The Title IX Coordinator frequently works closely with campus security officials who compile Clery statistics. These officials have institutional incentives to demonstrate that the school responds appropriatly to sexual misconduct allegations. They do not have institutional incentives to ensure accused students recieve fair proceedings. This imbalance is not accidental – it is a direct consequence of how the Clery Act structures compliance obligations. The compliance pressure flows one direction only.

Massive Fines, Real Consequences

OK so here is something that demonstrates just how serious schools take Clery compliance – and why that seriousness creates pressure that works against accused students. Michigan State University was fined $4.5 million in 2019 for failures related to the Larry Nassar case. That was the largest Clery Act fine ever imposed at the time. The Department of Education found the school had failed to properly report and respond to allegations of sexual violence.

But that record did not last long. Liberty University was fined $14 million in 2024 for systematic underreporting of sexual assault and other crimes. Penn State was fined $2.4 million. These are not theoretical penalties imposed on schools that actualy ignored sexual assault. These are massive financial consequences that every university administrator knows about. When your case comes across their desk, they are thinking about those fines.

Think about what a $14 million fine does to institutional decision-making. Schools cannot afford to look like they are underreporting sexual assault. Schools cannot afford to have outcomes that suggest they are not taking complaints seriousely. Finding students responsible demonstrates appropriate institutional response. Finding students not responsible – even when they are actualy innocent – risks looking like the school failed to address the complaint adequatly. The financial pressure is real, it is quantifiable, and it works against you.

Here is another thing about these fines that students do not realize. Schools are not just afraid of underreporting past incidents. They are afraid of patterns that suggest systemic failure to respond. If your school has had previous complaints that resulted in not responsible findings, the pressure to find responsibility in your case increases. Your case might be the one that balances their statistics. Your case might be the one that demonstrates the institution has changed its approach. You are not being evaluated in a vacume. You are being evaluated in the context of institutional compliance needs.

When One Incident Triggers Two Laws

Here is something about the Clery Act and Title IX interaction that creates particular problems for accused students. The same incident triggers obligations under both laws simultaneousely. When someone reports that you committed sexual assault, that report creates Clery obligations and Title IX obligations at the same time. You now exist in two different compliance systems, and neither one is designed with your interests in mind.

Under the Clery Act, your alleged conduct must be classified into specific crime categories and potentialy reported in campus crime statistics. Under Title IX, your alleged conduct must be investigated as potential sex-based discrimination. These are two different legal frameworks with two different purposes, but they both process the same allegation. The Clery reporting happens regardless of wheather you are ever found responsible. The allegation itself becomes part of the statistical record.

Here is where this dual-trigger system creates real problems. Campus Security Authorities – a broad category that includes coaches, RAs, student organization advisors, athletic directors, and basicly anyone with significant responsibility for student activities – must report incidents they learn about for Clery purposes. Many of these same people are also mandatory reporters for Title IX purposes. If you confide in your coach about a situation, that conversation triggers both reporting obligations. If your RA overhears something, both systems activate. There is almost no one on campus you can talk to confidentialy.

The dual system also means dual documentation. Your case creates records in the Title IX office and in the campus security office. Information flows between these offices. The people managing Clery compliance know what is happening in Title IX cases. The people managing Title IX cases know about Clery reporting pressure. You are not facing a single investigation. You are facing an interconnected compliance apparatus where multiple institutional interests converge – and none of them are aligned with your right to a fair process.

The Timely Warning Trap

Here is something else about the Clery Act that can damage accused students before any Title IX finding is ever made. The law requires schools to issue Timely Warnings when there is a crime that poses an ongoing threat to the campus community. These warnings go out to the entire campus. They describe the alleged crime, when and where it occured, and sometimes information about the suspect.

Think about what this means if you are accused of sexual assault and the school determines there might be an ongoing threat. A warning goes out to thousands of students, faculty, and staff describing an alleged sexual assault at your location. Your name might not be in the warning, but anyone who knows the circumstances can figure out who is being described. You have been effectivly publicaly accused before anyone has asked you a single question about what actualy happened.

There is no corresponding requirement for the school to announce when accusations turn out to be unfounded. If you are eventualy cleared through the Title IX process, there is no Timely Warning that goes out saying the earlier warning was about a case where the accused student was found not responsible. The campus heard about the allegation. They never hear about the resolution. Your reputation is destroyed by a compliance requirement, and there is no compliance requirement to restore it.

Here is the part that makes Timely Warnings especialy problematic. The decision about wheather to issue a warning is made by campus security officials – often the same officials responsible for Clery compliance who face pressure to demonstrate they take sexual assault seriousely. Issuing a warning shows the institution is responding proactivly. Not issuing a warning risks criticism that the school failed to protect the campus community. The institutional incentive is to warn, even when the underlying allegation might be questionable. Your presumption of innocence is casualy destroyed in the name of campus safety.

Campus Security Authorities Are Everywhere

Here is another aspect of the Clery Act that creates problems for accused students that they often do not realize until it is too late. The definition of Campus Security Authority is extremly broad. CSAs include campus police, security personnel, individuals responsible for campus security, and anyone with significant responsibility for student and campus activities. That last category sweeps in coaches, resident advisors, student organization advisors, academic deans, athletic directors, and many other people students might confide in.

What this means practicaly is that almost every authority figure on campus is basicly a mandatory reporter. If you talk to a coach about something that happened at a party, the coach must report it. If you mention a situation to your RA, he or she must report it. If you discuss something with your academic advisor, they may need to report it depending on their role. The people students naturaly turn to for guidance are often the same people who must feed information into the Clery reporting system.

Here is where this becomes especialy dangerous for students facing allegations. You might think you are having a confidential conversation about your perspective on what happened. The person you are talking to might be required to report that conversation. Statements you make thinking they are private end up in compliance reports. Information you share in what you beleive is a supportive conversation becomes evidence. The Clery Act’s broad CSA definition turns most of campus into an information-gathering network.

The only truly confidential resources on most campuses are licensed professional counselors acting in their counseling capacity, pastoral counselors acting in their religious capacity, and sometimes medical professionals depending on state law. Everyone else – professors, coaches, advisors, RAs, deans – may be required to report what you tell them. If you are accused of misconduct, this means the institution has probly already gathered information about your case from multiple sources before you even know an investigation has begun.

The Annual Security Report

Here is something that students facing Title IX allegations often do not think about. The outcome of your case will eventualy appear in the school’s Annual Security Report. This report is required by the Clery Act and must be published every year by October 1st. It contains three years of crime statistics, institutional policies, and information about how the school handles sexual misconduct cases. The report is not a dry compliance document that nobody reads. Prospective students and parents review it when making enrollment decisions. Journalists analyze it for stories about campus safety. Advocacy groups use it to rank schools on their response to sexual violence.

Here is another thing about the Annual Security Report that creates problems. The statistics are reported in rigid categories that do not capture nuance. A sexual assault is a sexual assault – the report does not distinguish between cases where the respondent was found responsible after a contested hearing and cases where the complainant later recanted. Your case becomes a number in a column, and that number shapes how outsiders perceive the institution. Schools know this. They know that their numbers will be compared to peer institutions. They know that high numbers might suggest a problem while low numbers might suggest they are not taking complaints seriousely. Your case is evaluated in the context of what those statistics will look like.

Think about what this means. Your case becomes a permanent statistic in a document that is publicly available. Prospective students and their parents read this report when deciding wheather to attend the school. Journalists review these reports when writing about campus safety. Advocacy organizations analyze the data to identify schools with sexual assault problems. Your finding of responsibility – or non-responsibility – becomes part of a public record that shapes perceptions of the institution.

Schools are intensley aware of how their Annual Security Reports look. Reports showing many sexual assault findings might suggest the school has a problem. Reports showing few findings might suggest the school is not taking complaints seriousely. Schools try to thread this needle by demonstrating appropriate response rates – enough findings to show they take complaints seriousely, but not so many that the campus seems unsafe. Your case is evaluated in this context. You are not just an individual student facing an allegation. You are a data point that affects how the institution presents itself to the world.

Here is the part that creates particular pressure. If your school has faced criticism for not responding adequatly to sexual assault complaints, the pressure to find responsibility in your case increases. If the school is trying to demonstrate it has changed its approach, your finding of responsibility helps tell that story. If the Department of Education has issued warnings about the school’s compliance, your case might be processed with one eye on what federal regulators will think. The institutional context shapes how your individual case is handled, and you may never know what pressures were operating behind the scenes. This is the reality of how these two laws actualy function together.

What Defense Actually Requires

If you are facing a Title IX investigation at a school subject to Clery Act requirements – which is basicly every school that accepts federal financial aid – you need to understand that your case exists within an institutional compliance framework. The school has obligations under both laws that create pressure to demonstrate appropriate response to sexual misconduct allegations. This pressure does not create bias in your favor.

Understanding the Clery Act context helps you make strategic decisions throughout the investigation. Knowing that Timely Warnings might broadcast your situation helps you understand why early intervention matters. Knowing that CSAs must report what they hear helps you understand who you can and cannot speak to candidly. Knowing that your outcome will appear in Annual Security Reports helps you understand the institutional pressures operating on decision-makers.

Todd Spodek has seen how the Clery Act and Title IX interact to create institutional conflicts of interest. At Spodek Law Group, we help students understand they are not just facing allegations – they are facing a compliance apparatus where institutional interests may be aligned against them. We document conflicts of interest. We challenge processes tainted by institutional pressure. We ensure that if your case eventualy requires legal action against the university becuase of unfair treatment, you have the record you need to demonstrate the institution prioritized compliance over fairness.

Many students beleive the Title IX process is designed to find truth. It is not. The process is designed to manage institutional risk and demonstrate compliance with federal requirements. The Clery Act adds another layer of risk management and compliance pressure. Understanding this reality is the first step toward mounting an effective defense.

Here is something else about defense strategy that students often miss completly. The institutional conflicts of interest created by Clery Act compliance can potentialy be used in your favor – but only if you document them. If you can demonstrate that the school faced pressure to find responsibility becuase of Clery compliance concerns, that evidence strengthens any subsequent legal challenge. If you can show that Timely Warnings were issued without adequate investigation, that evidence supports claims of defamation or procedural unfairness. The compliance framework that works against you during the Title IX process can become evidence of institutional bias if you eventualy need to sue the university.

You have recieved notice that you are being investigated under Title IX. The school has Clery Act obligations that create pressure to demonstrate appropriate response. What nobody tells you is that your case serves institutional compliance needs, and those needs are definately not aligned with your right to a fair process. Call us at 212-300-5196. The consultation is free. The consequences of facing this system without understanding the institutional pressures at work could be permanant.

You are not just a student facing an allegation. You are a compliance metric the institution needs to manage. Your defense needs to account for this reality from the moment you learn you are under investigation.