This was a unique year for higher education with arguably the most newsworthy incident of 2025 — the shooting death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk — occurring on a university campus.
While Kirk’s murder has led to significant conversations within our industry regarding security policies and procedures, particularly for when controversial public figures come to campus, Title IX and hazing also seem to be top of mind for Campus Safety readers.
Title IX continues to be a complicated and crucial consideration for campus safety leaders as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) grapples with a mounting backlog of school and college discrimination cases. OCR plays a crucial role in enforcing anti-discrimination laws, particularly for students with disabilities and those who have experienced sexual misconduct, or gender or racial discrimination.
Hazing has also taken a front seat in campus safety discussions this year. Just before Christmas last year, then-President Joe Biden signed into law the Stop Campus Hazing Act (SCHA), requiring institutions of higher education to disclose hazing crime statistics in its Annual Security Report (ASR). While an overwhelmingly welcomed legislation, campus leaders have been scrambling to establish policies and procedures to meet the new requirements.
Take a look at the most read higher ed Campus Safety stories from this year.
Top Higher Ed Campus Safety Articles from 2025
1. Liberty University Fired Employee for Reporting Title IX Violations, Lawsuit Claims
A federal lawsuit was filed n February against Liberty University and several senior executives, alleging that a former employee in the university’s Title IX office was terminated after he reported several Title IX violations.
The suit, filed on Feb. 21, outlines claims made by Peter Brake, a lawyer and veteran who served as an investigator in Liberty’s Office of Equity and Compliance/Title IX from 2019 to 2024. Brake alleges that he reported multiple cases of sexual harassment and other Title IX violations, including incidents involving coworkers, to Liberty University President Dondi Costin, reports WDBJ..
The lawsuit states that Brake faced retaliation after bringing concerns about Title IX violations to university officials. Following a fine in 2024 in which Liberty paid $14 million for violations of the Clery Act — marking the largest Clery-related fine in U.S. history — Brake claims he identified additional compliance failures. He reported these findings to Liberty’s compliance officer Ashley Reich, but was allegedly met with hostility, including what he describes as a “humiliating and unusual interrogation” by the institution’s human resources department.
Read the full article.
2. Charlie Kirk Shooting Update: Suspect Admitted to Shooting in Text Message
The 22-year-old male authorities say fatally shot Charlie Kirk at a September event at Utah Valley University admitted to doing so in a text message to his roommate, prosecutors say.
The roommate texted Tyler Robinson about the shooting, according to court documents. The suspect then texted the unidentified roommate to “look under my keyboard” where he found a note saying, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it,” the court documents allege. Robinson allegedly told his roommate that he had “enough of his (Kirk’s) hatred,” reports CBS News.
Robinson, who is facing the death penalty, also told his roommate he was worried about retrieving his rifle. A rifle was allegedly found in the woods near the scene of the shooting.
Read the full article.
3. College Hazing Death Database: 122 People Have Died in Last 25 Years
An online database of college hazing deaths, published in June, shows there have been an average of five hazing deaths per year since 2000.
Hank Nuwer, a journalist, author, and investigator who has spent 50 years researching hazing deaths, partnered with the University of Washington Information School, the University of Maine, and HazingInfo.org, the nation’s first comprehensive website of hazing incidents on U.S. college campuses, to create an interactive database cataloging hazing deaths and honoring those who have lost their lives since 1838.
According to the data, at least 333 people have died due to hazing since 1838. More recently, there have been 122 recorded hazing deaths since 2000 — which averages to five deaths per year.
Read more stats here.
4. 5 Assumption University Students Charged in ‘To Catch a Predator’ Social Media Challenge
Five Assumption University students were charged after police say they lured a man to campus and assaulted him as part of a social media challenge.
According to court documents, Assumption Police say the group of students labeled the man a sexual predator without evidence and then enlisted the help of a “mob” of up to 30 students to chase and assault him while filming the incident, the Telegram & Gazette reports. The incident appears to be tied to a TikTok trend in which people try to catch pedophiles and sexual predators to expose them online, police say.
One of the students charged, 19-year-old Easton Randall, told police that the planned confrontation was “like the Chris Hansen videos where you catch a predator and either call police or kick their ass,” noting the incident “got out of hand and went bad.”
“To Catch a Predator” ran from 2004 to 2008 and featured undercover police operations where men were lured through online chat rooms to a home where they thought they were meeting someone underage for sex. The host would confront the men before they were arrested.
Read more about the incident.
5. San Diego State Fraternity Pledge Set on Fire, 4 Members Charged
Four members of a San Diego State University (SDSU) fraternity were charged after a pledge was set on fire during a party.
The incident happened on Feb. 17, 2024, during a large party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, NBC San Diego reports. As part of a skit, the fraternity had one of the pledges set another pledge on fire. The 19-year-old victim suffered third-degree burns on 16% of his body, mostly his legs, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. He spent weeks in the hospital to treat the burns, officials said.
The four defendants, Caden Cooper, 22, Lucas Cowling, 20, Christopher Serrano, 20, and Lars Larsen, 19, were arraigned in January and charged with multiple felonies, including recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, conspiracy to commit an act injurious to the public, and violating the social host ordinance.
Read more about the incident.
6. Charlie Kirk Security Chief: UVU Police Failed to Secure Rooftops
The head of Charlie Kirk’s security team alleges Utah Valley University’s police chief did not follow through on his promise to secure rooftops during the September event where Kirk was assassinated.
Brian Harpole, founder of Integrity Security Solutions and head of Kirk’s contracted security team, said on “The Shawn Ryan Show” that the student group that invited Kirk to host the event told him that some of the rooftops were easily accessible, with some looking down on the open courtyard where Kirk was set to speak, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Harpole says he texted UVU Police Chief Jeff Long about his concerns, asking if the school could have officers patrol the roof or if he would allow Harpole to assign someone on his team.
“We were told the roof was covered. The chief said, ‘I got you covered.’ I took him at his word,” Harpole said. “We told them this one was open air, surrounded by elevated ground. We needed more eyes, more coverage. But we were told it would be handled.”
To his knowledge, Harpole says no one from UVU was assigned to check the roofs or be stationed at the doors, and no one from his team was allowed access. Kirk was fatally shot from a rooftop just two minutes into the event. The suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, has been charged with capital murder.
Read the full article.
7. Lessons Learned from the FSU Shooting
The April 2025 shooting at Florida State University (FSU) serves as a critical reminder: emergency planning, training, and continuous assessment save lives.
Despite the heartbreak of loss, the FSU incident also demonstrated what effective planning and response can look like. With zero student fatalities and a law enforcement response time under two minutes, it’s clear that some things were done right. However, it also exposed vulnerabilities that must be addressed and security measures that must be enhanced before the next crisis.
This article covers:
- What went right during the FSU shooting response
- What areas need to be enhanced
- Ongoing challenges for campus security
