Admission of guilt?

Beginning this fall, every public and private Virginia institution of higher education must hand over the name, social security number, gender and birth date of all students admitted into their schools for cross-checking against sex offender lists.\nUnlike the state of Indiana's Sheriff's Sex Offender Registry (www.insor.org), which requires college administrators, employers and community members to search the state's database for information regarding possible sex-offender neighbors, Virginia is the first state in the union to legislate a "need-to-know" process that informs colleges about any sex-offender applicants. \nSupporters of the law say the need to protect students from sex offenders outweighs any civil liberty or individual privacy issues.\n"You could literally have the college and the state housing sex offenders next to potential victims," Republican State Senator Kenneth Stolle, the bill's chief sponsor, told the Lynchburg News & Advance newspaper June 25. "If my daughter was living next to a sex offender I would like to have that information."\nCritics say the Virginia law opens the door for information abuses, including the prospect for lost or stolen personal data -- and the possibility police might use the information for unrelated searches.\nAssuming that Virginia State Police delete the information on non-offending students, as they have declared they will, we see no reason why institutions of higher learning should not consider the criminal background of potential students. That said, however, we believe the Virginia legislature needs to adopt a measure to ensure that presence on such a list does not result in immediate rejection. Not all sex-crimes are created equal, and for the rapists and molesters on such lists, there are also people convicted of streaking, public urination or other crimes making them a dubious threat to the campus community. \nFor all Sen. Stolle's election-year posturing, 2004 FBI statistics indicate his daughter is more likely to be robbed or assaulted, have her dorm broken into, her personal stuff stolen -- including her car from the parking lot -- and face other violent crimes besides being sexually assaulted by the (presumably) female student in the next dorm room. Not that authorities and the campus community shouldn't work diligently in their efforts to stamp out sexual assault. But colleges should be realistic about the threat involved. And must take into account each sex-offending student's background on a case-by-case basis, with all circumstances -- like crime, punishment and length of reform -- weighed alongside the student's personal portfolio.\nTo illustrate the scale of the risk in our own environment: A quick check of www.insor.org indicates two sex offenders work within a half of a mile of the IU campus, including one IU staff member. And about 25 sex offenders live or work within a two-mile radius of the IU Memorial Union, including one IU student, one Ivy Tech Community College student and one Ivy Tech employee. You can see for yourself, but please be advised that it is against the law to misuse the information from the registry for personal, unlawful or vigilante purposes.