· The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crimes Statistics Act, enacted in response to the 1986 murder of Jeanne Clery at Lehigh University, requires all schools to publish yearly crime statistics. The act specifies that schools must report separately those crimes that appear to have been motivated by bias or prejudice.

· The Student Right to Know Act of 1991 mandates that colleges and universities receiving federal funding must report crime rates to federal authorities.

· For a review of other hate crime laws, read the National Criminal Justice Referral Services' list of hate crime resources.

· Crime reports for some schools, managed by the U.S. Department of Education, are kept on the Office of Postsecondary Education website.

The site is designed to allow people to review and compare crime incidents from campus to campus. But users say the site is incomplete. Don't be fooled by that sea of zeros. Crime-free campuses are rare; shoddy crime reporting isn't.

· Campus police logs vary in their availability and thoroughness. Request a copy of your campus police log. If it's restricted, incomplete or misleading, push for more accessibility and accountability. Use the Illinois State University log as an example.

· The 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act requires your university to remove your phone number and e-mail address from its website at your request. Invoke the act following e-mail or phone crimes or harassment.

· Some campuses have codes of conduct, speech codes or other rules of behavior; these may apply to bias incidents. Be aware: some such codes have been struck down as unconstitutional. Campus "free speech zones," attempting to govern where free speech may occur, also have been struck down.

· Private colleges have more latitude in punishing bias incidents, but many follow the same rules that govern public schools.

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