Campus Evidence Lab Public evidence infrastructure

Policy Library

Terms Of Use

Access, permitted use, prohibited misuse, submissions, warranties, and liability boundaries.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using Campus Evidence Lab, including its public website, public GitHub repository, data exports, issue templates, and submission forms (collectively, "the project"), you agree to these Terms of Use. If you do not agree, do not access or use the project. Continued use of the project after any revision to these terms constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

2. Project Description

Campus Evidence Lab is a static-first public evidence archive documenting United States campus-related civil rights records drawn from public sources. The project compiles event records, school records, source records, review logs, correction logs, release notes, snapshot manifests, and associated CSV/JSON exports, and publishes generated public pages from this material. The project operates through a public website and a public GitHub repository, using GitHub issues, pull requests, and structured submission forms as its primary channels for community input and correction. The project may be deployed using third-party infrastructure such as Cloudflare or GitHub Pages.

3. Nature and Limits of the Archive

The dataset and all associated pages, exports, and materials are a public-source evidence archive only. They are not legal advice, not a legal finding, not a ranking, not a school safety score, not a prevalence estimate, not a severity score, not an endorsement of or by any institution, and not a complete census of campus civil-rights incidents. Absence of a record for a given school or event does not indicate the absence of incidents at that school, and presence of a record does not establish that an allegation is true, adjudicated, or representative of a broader pattern. Users must not present the dataset, any derived statistic, or any generated page as any of the excluded categories listed above.

4. Review Tiers

Not every public record in the archive is human-certified. Records may carry different review tiers, including imported public source, source-family checked, internally certified, and externally reviewed. Lower-tier records may be published with clear limits attached to their tier designation, and users are responsible for reading and respecting any such limits before relying on or redistributing a record. The review tier assigned to a record reflects the extent of verification performed at the time of publication and may change as further review occurs.

5. Permitted Use

You may access, read, search, cite, and redistribute the website content and dataset files for lawful purposes, including research, journalism, advocacy, education, and civic accountability, subject to the terms of the applicable licenses described in Section 9 and the restrictions in Section 6. You may submit corrections, duplicate reports, source submissions, and school metadata corrections through the GitHub issue templates or the site's structured submission page.

6. Prohibited Use

You may not use the project, its data, or its pages to:

  • Harass, intimidate, or target any individual, including students, staff, or other members of a school community;
  • Dox any person, including by publishing or aggregating private contact information, addresses, or other identifying details not already contained in the archive's public-source records;
  • Engage in targeted abuse against any individual or institution;
  • Claim or imply that Campus Evidence Lab endorses, certifies, ranks, or scores any school, institution, or individual;
  • Deploy automated scraping, bulk querying, or other automated means to overwhelm, disrupt, or degrade the project's infrastructure, or to circumvent rate limits or access controls;
  • Use any record, export, ranking, or derived statistic as the sole basis for a high-stakes decision affecting an individual or institution, including admissions, employment, enrollment, housing, or safety determinations;
  • Submit private testimony, private screenshots, direct messages, sensitive personal information, or unsupported allegations for inclusion in the archive;
  • Otherwise use the project in a manner inconsistent with its stated purpose as a public-source evidence archive.

7. User Responsibility for Source Review

Users are responsible for independently reviewing the underlying public sources cited for any record before relying on that record for any purpose beyond general reference. The project's review tiers described in Section 4 indicate the level of internal checking performed but do not substitute for a user's own diligence, particularly for records at lower review tiers. Users who redistribute or cite records should preserve the associated review tier, source citations, and any stated limits.

8. Correction and Right of Reply

Schools and other named institutions, as well as individuals referenced in a record, may submit correction requests, duplicate reports, or right-of-reply submissions through the GitHub issue templates or the site's structured submit page. The project will consider such submissions as part of its ongoing review process. Submission of a correction or reply request does not guarantee removal, alteration, or a particular outcome, but the project will address submissions consistent with its review model and evidence rules.

9. Intellectual Property

Software associated with Campus Evidence Lab is made available under the MIT License. Dataset files, including event records, school records, source records, and generated exports, are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where an underlying source imposes stricter limits on reuse, in which case those stricter limits govern the affected material. Users must comply with the applicable license terms, including attribution requirements, when reusing software or dataset files.

10. Third-Party Sources and External Links

Records in the archive are compiled from public sources, and the project may link to or reference third-party websites, documents, or reporting. The project does not control, endorse, or vouch for the accuracy, completeness, or continued availability of third-party sources or linked content. Users who rely on cited sources should verify the current content of those sources directly, as third-party material may change or be removed after a record is published.

11. User Submissions

Users may submit content through GitHub issues, pull requests, and the site's structured submission forms, including proposed records, corrections, duplicate reports, and school metadata corrections. All submissions must comply with the project's evidence rules: public-source-only, with no private testimony, private screenshots, direct messages, doxxing, sensitive personal information, or unsupported allegations. Artificial intelligence tools may assist with extraction, summarization, duplicate detection, and drafting in connection with submissions, but AI does not independently publish records and does not replace human review required for higher-tier statuses. The project reserves the right to decline, edit, or remove any submission that does not meet its evidence rules or that violates these Terms of Use.

12. Disclaimer of Warranties

The project, its website, dataset files, exports, and generated pages are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of accuracy, completeness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. The project does not warrant that any record is complete, current, or free of error, and does not warrant uninterrupted or error-free access to the website or repository.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Campus Evidence Lab and its contributors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, reputation, opportunity, or goodwill, arising out of or in connection with access to or use of the project, its data, or its pages, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. Use of the archive and any decisions made in reliance on it are at the user's own risk.

14. Changes to These Terms

These Terms of Use may be revised from time to time to reflect changes in the project's scope, evidence rules, review model, or licensing posture. Revised terms will be published on the project's website and take effect upon publication. Continued use of the project after publication of revised terms constitutes acceptance of those terms.

15. Contact

Questions, corrections, duplicate reports, source submissions, school metadata corrections, and right-of-reply requests should be directed through the GitHub issue templates or the site's structured submit page. These channels are the project's designated path for all correction and submission inquiries.