Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Education issued a “Dear Colleague” letter Monday, instructing colleges and universities on how to comply with amended Clery Act provisions on reporting statistics for sexual assault and related incidents.
• While higher ed institutions must include new information mandated by the amended law in their next annual security reports, which are due Oct. 1, the department’s specific regulations based on that law are expected by Nov. 1 and won’t be effective until July 1, 2015.
• In the meantime, colleges and universities have to make a “good-faith effort” to comply with the amended law and look to the statute as a basis for policies they develop or revise, the department wrote.

Dive Insight:

The letter states that because proposed rules based on the law may be changed before their final version, schools can’t base their compliance on them. Among the requirements under the good-faith standard, schools will have to expand their policy statements to include information about how they will accommodate certain requests by victims. The Dear Colleague letter also includes some more detailed guidance, such as which calendar years should be included in the statistics reported in the annual security reports.