The Borough of West Chester is humming once again as students have returned to campus for a new academic year. In a similar fashion, though without the boxes of textbooks and bags of clean laundry, Congress returned to Capitol Hill with a full agenda of critical policy items to address this fall.
In the coming months, the House will work to advance legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, providing us with an excellent opportunity to improve the higher education experience for our children and families.
Often overlooked in the greater education discussion is that of campus safety. This fall, an important item on my syllabus is ensuring that our children have a safe campus environment.
Congress needs to refocus its efforts so that the campus environment, where students live, learn, and work, is healthy and secure. Likewise, we must ensure that parents have the peace of mind to know that a child’s college or university is doing all it can to foster a safe and accountable school environment.
To this end, I have cosponsored bipartisan legislation called the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, H.R. 1310. This legislation offers a comprehensive and overdue upgrade to security compliance requirements for colleges and universities.
In particular, H.R. 1310 would require schools that receive certain federal funds to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with local law enforcement agencies to clearly spell out responsibilities and share information regarding serious crimes, including sexual violence, occurring against students on campus.
Further, this legislation would require colleges and universities to enhance campus security policies, as well as provide greater support services and training to assist victims of crimes that occur on campus. In order to do this, H.R. 1310 would enable the federal government to help schools enhance their ability to prevent crime on campus.
We all want our students to be successful in their educational endeavors. By taking simple steps to improve security policies on-campus, we can create an environment where students worry more about whether or not they can pull an all-nighter studying to pass their Chemistry exam, not if they can walk home from that library safely at night.
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Congressman Ryan A. Costello is the U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania’s Sixth Congressional District that includes portions of Berks, Chester, Lebanon and Montgomery Counties.
I agree that your description of the bill is lacking in detail. What concerns me is that it would have a section that allows or requires people to carry guns on campus and we end up with intoxicated teenagers and young adults solving their “he disrespected me” disputes with guns. As a gun owner who practices shooting at least once a month, I know how difficult it is to hit what you are shooting at, particularly when it is over 25-30 feet. Even people at the range seldom practice at over 15-25 feet. The general scenario on a campus altercation will be guns blasting, bullets flying all over, and innocent bystanders getting shot.
While “common sense” may say “more guns less crime”, that is a fable not supported by data. Research shows the more guns, the more gun violence. So, 2nd amendment yes, gun control yes. One downs not preclude the other.
Your description of the bill is just so much / many platudes. It does not say WHAT policies are considered to be those would make the campus safer. Are you planning to make them “gun free” zones, in violation of the 2nd amendment? And in violation of the common sense “more guns, less crime”?
Common sense? No other country on Earth has as many gun deaths as the US. Two separate shootings at Fort Hood, full of heavily armed people which seems to have done nothing to keep the victims safer, put the lie to your claimed “facts.” And guns are never mentioned in this, just funds to help campus police and local police work better together to keep students and faculty safe. As the extreme continue to take over the Republican Party, it is a tragedy, as there will be no moderate, business-friendly party to counter the Democrats. I applaud Costello for working to keep the middle ground of politics viable.