Robert Torricelli: “I rise today to offer my appreciation to my colleagues on the Labor Committee for their hard work on the Higher…”

“I rise today to offer my appreciation to my colleagues on the Labor Committee for their hard work on the Higher Education Reauthorization Act of 1998. I am especially grateful to the Chairman and Ranking Member, Senator Jeffords and Senator Kennedy, for their inclusion of two provisions I authored which are critical to the people of this Nation and of my state of New Jersey. The first addresses the issue of campus safety. Mr. President, every year, over 10 million students and their parents agonize over where to attend college. They spend months researching schools and visiting campuses in an effort to find the perfect fit. Just as information is the key to making an informed choice about professors or scholarships, it is the key to choosing a safe learning environment. Currently, students and their parents do not have access to all the information. Current law requires colleges and universities to report statistics on crimes that occur on their campuses. Reports of hate crimes, however, is limited to only those that result in murder, rape, or aggravated assault. This is the law notwithstanding the fact that these 3 categories of crimes only represent 16 percent of the total number of hate crimes that occur on college campuses every year. Over 80% take the form of other crimes, including simple assault and robbery.”