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By ANNE KAROLYI; Times Leader Staff Writer
Sunday, May 01, 1994 Page: 18A QUICK WORDS: IN MEMORY OF MURDERED
DAUGHTER, COUPLE CRUSADE FOR
Some tape on a door led to the end of a young life and forever changed two
others.
In 1986, Lehigh University freshman Jeanne Cleary was tortured, raped and
murdered in her dorm room. Her attacker, fellow student Joseph Henry, entered
the building through an unlocked door.
Students at the school in Bethlehem had taped the locks open so party-goers
could come to an on-campus bash.
Police investigations revealed Henry had a history of robberies on campus,
that student security guards knew the door was open and left the tape on the
locks, and that university officials had records of 161 instances when the
tape trick provided free rein to what was supposed to be a restricted
building.
Howard and Connie Cleary believe they lost their only daughter, their
youngest child, because no one on campus was watching out for crime.
“(Henry) was bragging about what he did to `that white bitch,’ ” Howard
Cleary said, his voice still tight, strained and shaking years after his
daughter’s death. “He should never have gotten into that building.”
The Clearys turned their grief and anger to action. Shortly after their
daughter’s murder, they began lobbying for college accountability of student
safety. They started in Bethlehem, Philadelphia and then Pittsburgh, telling
Jeanne’s story and demanding changes be made.
The media and then state legislators soon picked up their cause, and the
state passed a law requiring colleges to publish annual crime statistics and
detailed accounts of campus security measures and policies.
After a few other states followed suit, the Clearys went to Washington,
D.C., and, in 1990, Congress passed the Campus Security Act, modeled after the
state laws, Howard Cleary said.
Haunted by their daughter’s death, the Clearys still continued their quest.
They helped write a Campus Sexual Assault Victim’s Bill of Rights, which
recently became federal law, Cleary said.
It guarantees student victims certain rights, such as prohibiting college
officials from calling rape a lesser charge or not treating it as a criminal
matter; ensuring the victim does not have to see the attacker on campus; and
ensuring the rights to a lawyer and immediate medical treatment.
The couple, who live in Florida and Bryn Mawr, have traveled nationwide,
aiding fights for safer campuses. They’ve been involved in creating new
campus-safety legislation in 18 states. “We hope to live to get the rest,”
Howard Cleary said.
They’ve slowed down a bit lately; Howard Cleary suffered a heart attack
last year. “It was stress. I get so angry,” he said.
It’s easy to become irate and disillusioned: They know parents of 15
students murdered on college campuses and hundreds of women who have been
raped on campus, Cleary said.
But their crusade continues, most recently with an April 21 appearance on
the Larry King Live show on CNN.
“Some of the people who called in to the show, they said we have helped
them,” Cleary said, about an hour after the program aired. “That was nice to
hear.”
The laws are starting to create safer campuses, Cleary said. In
Pennsylvania, the state and state-related universities, such as Penn State and
Temple University have cracked down on campus crime, particularly underage
drinking, he said.
Some private schools in the country — “the smart ones,” Cleary calls them
— also are taking control of their campuses. But the Clearys continue to hear
stories of lax security and inaccurate crime reporting from others, Cleary
said.
Cleary said he is not familiar with any Luzerne County colleges.
“One man at a college told me, `If we put the right (crime) figures down,
we’ll look bad because everyone else will lie.’ And I said, `What ever
happened to truth in education?’ ”
The Clearys formed a non-profit organization, Security on Campus, which
aids students and parents researching or battling campus crime. The group is
based in King of Prussia, and a staff member from the group can be reached at
610-768-9330.
Occasionally, the Clearys visit a Lehigh University memorial to their
daughter, who would have turned 27 this year. “Going there, it makes me want
to puke,” Cleary said.
But they persist in their quest for campus safety, hoping that another
student, somewhere, might be spared their daughter’s fate.
“Everything we do, we do in memory of our daughter,” Cleary said. “She was
a ranked tennis player; she was enjoying school; she could have done so much.
But we’ll never know.”