Did School Helped in Covering Up the Crime
In my assessment of the facts, I believe that Eastern Michigan University did not intentionally covered-up the death of Laura Dickinson. Though the Clery Act requires schools to report any crimes and other threats to safety to students, it ignores such law because it lacked clear decision as to what to do with the incident (Goldman). Aside from that, it is beyond doubt that the school failed in initiating investigation on the incident.
The tragic incident may also have distracted the school administrator as to what really happened to Laura until the body cannot be revealed to the students. Apart from that, the school may have feared that announcing the death of Laura may disturb their investigation and may create fear among students that they cannot control. The incident may have been perceived by the school as a threat to the peace within the school. Furthermore, the incident may have happened the first time and it is not prepared and lacked the proper guidelines in responding to such incident.
It would also be unfair to conclude that the incident was covered- up because the school did not hid the body. If it was the school’s intention to cover-up the incident, it could have done anything that would disallow anyone from discovering it. Besides, the school made a statement after ten days. Thereafter, informed Laura’s parents after ten weeks. Ten weeks may be considered to be unreasonable for the school to finally decide in revealing the truth but it may be considered only as a negligence and indecisiveness on their part.
The school may have feared losing its reputation once the incident is fully made known in public and may have been confused about the privacy of the people concerned. Aside from failing to report the incident, there are no other circumstances that would strongly determine that the school tried to hide the incident from the students and the public as well. Furthermore, the school may have been ignorant about the consequences of its act. Hence, the school did not intentionally covered-up the incident.
