ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996 TAG: 9609160037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN SNIDER STAFF WRITER
The U.S. Department of Education will look into allegations that Virginia Tech has intentionally underreported campus crime statistics.
Tech spokesman Larry Hincker called the allegations "false and intentionally misleading."
Richmond lawyer Eileen Wagner made the allegations in a complaint filed in August.
Wagner represents former Tech student Christy Brzonkala, who says two football players raped her in their dorm room in September 1994.
The players were never charged criminally, and a federal judge recently dismissed a suit Brzonkala filed against the players under the Violence Against Women Act and against the university for allegedly discriminating against her because of her gender. The ruling is under appeal.
In July, Brzonkala filed suit in state court, claiming the university and the two players interfered with her access to fair hearings.
The department announced Wednesday its decision to pursue Wagner's allegations further. Also on Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a resolution directing the department to "play a more active role in monitoring and enforcing" the parts of the Higher Education Act of 1965 that pertain to campus crime.
Brzonkala believes Tech "customarily declines to report any sexual assault for which no police report is prepared," according to the complaint.
She points to Tech's crime report for 1994, which lists two rapes. Both rapes were reported to someone other than a police officer. However, Brzonkala's rape report is not listed. She told the Women's Center in the spring of 1995 that she had been raped.
Hincker said he's not sure where the two 1994 reports came from. He was reached at home Friday night and did not have access to those records.
A federal law passed in 1990 requires colleges and universities to report crimes committed on campus.
Hincker said the Education Department never fully clarified the law until 1994, and again in 1995, when the department called for schools to include crimes reported to departments other than the campus police.
Since then, Tech has complied, Hincker said. Statistics are compiled from campus police reports and other departments, such as the university's judicial system, the women's center and the student counseling center.
Universities once followed the same guidelines used for the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report and only counted those crimes reported to police, Hincker said.
The university still uses its discretion in recording incidents reported to other departments.
"Not every single report is going to be included," Hincker said. "Some are found to have no basis.
"Police need to have evidence that the crime actually took place."
During the 1995-96 academic year, Tech's crime statistics include two rapes reported to police and 12 reported to other departments.
In addition to the crime statistic allegations, Brzonkala charges that Tech deprived her of rights set forth in the Sexual Assault Victim's Bill of Rights, which Congress passed in 1992.
She says the school violated the law's guarantee of her freedom to choose whether to live near or attend classes with the accused and her right to know about her attackers' punishment.
Hincker called those allegations specious and said they were repudiated when the federal judge ruled in the university's favor.
"The filing of this complaint seems to be another in a long line of publicity stunts by counsel to gain whatever bargaining leverage might be available to force the university into a settlement," Hincker said.
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