AB 636: Postsecondary education: student safety.

Existing law requires the governing board of each community college district, the Trustees of the California State University, the Board of Directors of the Hastings College of the Law, the Regents of the University of California, and the governing boards of postsecondary educational institutions receiving public funds for student financial assistance to require the appropriate officials at each campus to compile records of specified crimes and noncriminal acts reported to campus police, campus security personnel, campus safety authorities, or designated campus authorities. Existing law requires, as a condition of participation in a specified financial aid program, any report by a victim of a Part 1 violent crime, sexual assault, or hate crime, as defined, received by a campus security authority and made by the victim for purposes of notifying the institution or law enforcement, to be immediately, or as soon as practicably possible, disclosed to the appropriate local law enforcement agency without identifying the victim, unless the victim consents to being identified after the victim has been informed of his or her right to have his or her personally identifying information withheld. Existing law prohibits this report to a local law enforcement agency from identifying the alleged assailant if the victim does not consent to being identified.

This bill would authorize the identification of the alleged assailant, even if the victim does not consent to being identified, if the institution determines both that the alleged assailant represents a serious or ongoing threat to the safety of students, employees, or the institution, and that the immediate assistance of the local law enforcement agency is necessary to contact or detain the assailant. In that case, the bill would require the institution, as a condition of participation in the financial aid program, to disclose the identity of the alleged assailant to the local law enforcement agency and to immediately inform the victim of that disclosure.

This bill also would make conforming and nonsubstantive changes.