When Cornell's trustees hired former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to review the university's handling of the Chi Phi case, they put the Clery Act on the list. Her review will assess compliance with Title IX, the Clery Act, the Violence Against Women Act, the Campus SaVE Act and New York law, The Cornell Daily Sun reported.

It's a reminder that Clery compliance isn't a once-a-year report. It's a year-round system for counting crimes, warning the campus, training staff and documenting every decision. Here is what that system involves in 2026, how institutions are organizing it, and the tools they use.

What the Clery Act requires

The Clery Act applies to colleges and universities that take part in federal student aid programs. In outline, an institution must:

  • Publish an Annual Security Report (ASR) by October 1 with three calendar years of crime statistics and a set of policy statements. Institutions with on-campus student housing also publish an Annual Fire Safety Report.
  • Count crimes by Clery geography: on campus (with a separate count for student housing), noncampus property and public property. The categories cover criminal offenses, hate crimes, dating violence, domestic violence and stalking, and arrests and disciplinary referrals for weapons, drug and liquor law violations.
  • Collect reports from Campus Security Authorities (CSAs), the employees and volunteers with significant responsibility for students and campus activities, not only from police.
  • Issue timely warnings about Clery crimes that pose a serious or continuing threat, and emergency notifications for immediate threats.
  • Keep a daily crime log if the institution has a campus police or security department, with entries made within two business days of a report.
  • Submit statistics to the U.S. Department of Education through its annual Campus Safety and Security Survey.

The rules are in 20 U.S.C. 1092(f) and the Department's regulations at 34 CFR 668.46.

What changed this year

  • Hazing statistics are new. The Stop Campus Hazing Act, signed December 23, 2024, added hazing to Clery. Institutions began collecting hazing statistics on January 1, 2025, and the 2026 ASR, due October 1, 2026, is the first to include them, according to the Clery Center. The law also requires a public Campus Hazing Transparency Report, first due December 23, 2025 and updated at least twice a year.
  • The federal survey is being revised. The Department of Education proposed revising the Campus Safety and Security Survey, publishing a comment request in July and sending the revision to the Office of Management and Budget on September 25.
  • The penalties are real. In March 2024, Liberty University agreed to pay $14 million, the largest Clery fine to date, and to spend $2 million on campus safety improvements, Inside Higher Ed reported.

How institutions organize the work

Compliance offices that run Clery well tend to share a few habits:

  1. One accountable owner. A named Clery compliance officer or coordinator, with a cross-campus committee that includes police or public safety, Title IX, student conduct, housing, Greek life, athletics, general counsel and communications.
  2. A living CSA roster. CSAs change every semester as coaches, advisers and residence life staff come and go. Institutions identify them by role, notify them each year, train them, and give them one simple way to report.
  3. Year-round reconciliation. Police reports, CSA reports, Title IX and conduct cases are compared regularly, not just in September, so each incident is counted once, in the right category and geography.
  4. Geography mapping. Every building and property the institution owns or controls, including student organization houses and leased space, is classified before the year starts.
  5. Documented decisions. Why a timely warning was or wasn't issued, why an incident was classified a certain way, and why a crime was "unfounded" are all recorded at the time.
  6. Evidence of distribution. Proof that students and employees were notified of the ASR by October 1, and that the emergency response test happened.

The tools they use

Most institutions combine several kinds of tools:

  • Clery reporting and case management platforms. Vendors including CleryEdge, Omnigo, ARMS and the Husch Blackwell Clery Compliance Toolset describe products for logging incidents, managing statistics, publishing crime and fire logs, and producing the ASR. CleryEdge lists features for training and surveying CSAs. Conduct and case management systems such as Maxient are often used alongside them for Title IX and student conduct cases.
  • Records and dispatch systems in campus police departments, which feed the daily crime log.
  • Emergency notification systems for timely warnings and emergency alerts by text, email and app.
  • Survey and form tools such as Qualtrics for CSA incident reports and campus climate surveys.
  • Spreadsheets, still the backbone at many smaller institutions for statistics tables, the CSA roster and the ASR review.

One caution applies to all of them: software can organize documentation and deadlines, but it can't make the compliance judgment. Classification, geography and timely warning decisions still need trained people.

Surveys: what's required and what helps

Clery itself doesn't require a student climate survey, but surveys support the work in two ways:

  • CSA reporting. A short, consistent form makes it easy for CSAs to pass on what they're told, with the details the Clery office needs, and creates a record that they did.
  • Campus climate surveys. These show whether students know how to report, trust the process and know where to find help. Some states require them: New York's Education Law Article 129-B, for example, requires a campus climate assessment at least every other year.

To help, we've built two free templates.

A checklist for the year ahead

  • January: confirm the CSA roster and geography map for the new calendar year.
  • Spring: train CSAs; run your climate survey if you're due one.
  • Summer: reconcile police, CSA, Title IX and conduct records; draft statistics.
  • September: finalize the ASR and Annual Fire Safety Report; review every policy statement.
  • October 1: publish and notify students and employees.
  • Fall: submit to the Campus Safety and Security Survey; update the Campus Hazing Transparency Report.
  • All year: keep the daily crime log current and document timely warning decisions.

This guide summarizes requirements for a general audience and isn't legal advice. Confirm details with your Clery compliance officer and counsel.

Sources