Today's Law As Amended


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AB-644 Public postsecondary education: campus safety: hate crime: surveys.(2023-2024)



As Amends the Law Today


SECTION 1.

 Section 66294 is added to the Education Code, to read:

66294.
 (a) This section shall be known, and may be cited, as the Justice for Josiah Lawson Act.
(b) Beginning after the date on which the United States Secretary of Education makes the online survey available to institutions, the office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges and the office of the Chancellor of the California State University shall, and the office of the President of the University of California is requested to, do all of the following:
(1) Develop survey questions with student participation to determine student perspectives on campus climate related to hate crimes.
(2) Require campuses that already have formulated and implemented a campus climate survey before January 1, 2024, to meet on or before December 31, 2024, and at least once every five years thereafter, to review and update the survey with student participation and include hate-crime specific questions in the survey with student participation in the development of survey questions.
(3) Submit the questions developed pursuant to paragraph (1) to the United States Secretary of Education for review and approval to be incorporated into the online survey.
(4) Provide standardized training to campus employees who are responsible for handling equity, diversity, and inclusion under the Clery Act on campus safety, reporting, addressing, and preventing hate crimes, and informing students and campus leadership on best practices for survey formulation and administration pursuant to this section. Training provided to an employee pursuant to this paragraph shall be at least 25 hours in total annually.
(c) (1) Beginning one year after the date on which the United States Secretary of Education makes the online survey available to institutions, and every two years thereafter, the office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges and the office of the Chancellor of the California State University shall, and the office of the President of the University of California is requested to, submit a report on the published campus-level results from the online survey and surveys provided pursuant to paragraph (2) of subdivision (b) to the Assembly Committee on Higher Education and the Senate Committee on Education.
(2) Each campus of the California Community Colleges and the California State University shall, and each campus of the University of California is requested to, post in a prominent location on its internet website the segment’s report described in paragraph (1), as applicable. The segment’s report shall be posted in a prominent location on the internet website maintained by the California College Guidance Initiative (californiacolleges.edu) and the California State University’s internet website (calstate.edu), and is requested to be posted in a prominent location on the University of California’s internet website (universityofcalifornia.edu), as applicable.
(d) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:
(1) “Campus climate” means a measure of an individual’s experience within a learning environment, and specifically includes focus on the current attitudes, practices, and behaviors of campus life that impact the success and retention of all members of a campus community.
(2) “Clery Act” means the federal Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1092(f), as it read on January 1, 2023).
(3) “Hate crime” has the same meaning as defined in Section 422.55 of the Penal Code.
(4) “Institution” means a campus of the California Community Colleges, the California State University, and the University of California.
(5) “Online survey” means the online survey tool for campus safety established by Section 1507 of Title III of Division H of Public Law 117–103.
(6) “Student participation” means voluntary participation of individuals of the campus’s student body and campus-recognized student organizations that represent students of marginalized and underrepresented groups.
SEC. 2.
  If the Commission on State Mandates determines that this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.