The U.S. Department of Education has levied a $275,000 fine on Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., for failing to maintain a crime log and to distribute annual security reports, among other violations of campus-crime-reporting law.
Officials at Lincoln, a historically black land-grant institution, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday afternoon. Campuses often appeal such fines, but Lincoln’s plans were not immediately apparent.
The department imposed the penalty late last month under the federal law known as the Clery Act, each violation of which carried a $27,500 fine during the time Lincoln was investigated.
According to a review by the department in 2009, Lincoln inadequately documented crimes that had occurred there, resulting in underreporting. In addition to not keeping a crime log, federal officials found, the university miscoded some crimes and did not properly define its geographic boundaries. It failed to provide proof that it had requested crime statistics from local law-enforcement agencies, and for 2006 and 2007 the university did not distribute an annual security report, as required by law.
The Education Department also cited Lincoln for violations related to sexual-assault policies. In two instances, federal officials found, the university did not provide a victim of sexual assault with the outcome of an ensuing campus disciplinary process. And in a year in which Lincoln did issue an annual security report, it failed to include a statement of possible sanctions in such cases.
“Lincoln’s violations of the Clery Act are very serious and numerous,” the Education Department wrote in a letter to Kevin D. Rome, the university’s president. “These failures endangered Lincoln’s students and employees, who must be able to rely on the disclosures of campus crime statistics, policies, and statements ... to take precautions for their safety.”
Federal compliance reviews generally take several years, and, after an initial report in 2009, Lincoln informed the Education Department of many updates in its procedures. Among them, the university said it had ensured that a daily crime log would be properly maintained, that annual security reports would be completed and widely distributed, and that accusers in sexual-misconduct cases would be informed of the outcomes.
Although the fine comes several years later, those updates have already been a priority, said a spokeswoman for the Education Department. “The more important objective of ensuring compliance going forward the school has been well aware of for several years.”
Of about a dozen fines the Education Department has levied under the Clery Act—the largest, $350,000, against Eastern Michigan University—Lincoln’s is on the high end.
The amounts of several have changed on appeal, a few more than once. The fine for any new violation went up last year, to $35,000.
