Sen. Arlen Specter said yesterday that the nation's colleges and universities were failing to meet their obligation to publicly report campus crimes, and he sharply criticized the U.S. Department of Education for not compelling them to do so.

The federally filed annual reports are required under a law Specter (R., Pa.) authored in 1990 known as the Clery Act. According to a 2005 Justice Department estimate, two-thirds of all schools file inaccurate or incomplete reports, and a January Inquirer examination of filings by local schools found numerous Clery violations.

"This is a very, very important statute, because if you do not know what's happening on the campus, parents cannot make an evaluation where they might send their children to school," Specter said as he opened a Senate Judiciary Committee field hearing on Clery Act compliance at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

"So we're not kidding when we say this reporting is important, and it's not being done."

During the hearing, Specter wondered aloud whether stiffer penalties - including jail time or the withholding of federal funds - would get colleges to take Clery reporting more seriously. Afterward he said he would discuss those possibilities with his colleagues.

I understand Specter has good intentions here, but aren't there bigger problems facing our country?