The U.S. Department of Education is fining Virginia Tech $55,000 for violating federal law by waiting too long to notify students during the 2007 massacre on the Blacksburg campus.
The department notified the university of the fine in a letter Tuesday. In a December report, the Education Department said Virginia Tech was too slow in notifying the campus about a gunman after two students were shot in a dormitory on April 16, 2007.
The $55,000 fine was the maximum the school could receive for its violations of the Clery Act, the federal law that governs the information colleges must disclose about campus crime.
“While Virginia Tech’s violations warrant a fine far in excess of what is currently permissible under the statute, the Department’s fine authority is limited,” the letter to the school says.
After the first two slayings, gunman Seung-Hui Cho went on to kill another 30 people before turning the gun on himself in the deadliest shooting rampage on a college campus in U.S. history.
