Left to right, Rep. Doug Gilliam, R-Union, and Rep. Tim McGinnis, R-Myrtle Beach, listen to testimony Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, from college police chiefs in the state. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Legislators want to require safety training for South Carolina’s college students but stopped short of tougher penalties for people who call in fake threats on campus.
The effort, initiated by Rep. Tim McGinnis, followed a swatting hoax that left students traumatized on the University of South Carolina’s Columbia campus in late August, as well as a shooting during homecoming celebrations that left one person dead and another injured at South Carolina State University in October.
“When you send your kids off to school, you want them to do well, and you want them to achieve great things for their futures,” the Myrtle Beach Republican said. “But more than anything, you want them to be safe.”
The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in September added even more urgency to the conversation, GOP legislators said.
Police chiefs from South Carolina’s two largest colleges — USC and Clemson University — voiced support for the bill Thursday before a House higher education panel.
The legislation sent unanimously to the full House education committee mandates that colleges and universities train all new students on campus safety measures during student orientation or within the first 30 days of the student being on campus. It applies to both public and private institutions that receive aid through the state lottery.
USC’s swatting incident took place during students’ first week on campus.
In addition to covering evacuation and lockdown procedures, colleges must give incoming students personal safety tips, show them how to reach campus security and receive emergency alerts, tell them about mental health treatment on campus and teach them how to report sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking.
SC colleges talk safety, active shooter drills in wake of ‘swatting’ hoax, Charlie Kirk killing
Last September, college police chiefs also asked legislators to consider harsher punishment for people convicted of what’s called swatting — named for the heavy response from law enforcement, to include SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams, the hoaxes bring.
Bills introduced in both chambers in early 2024 on punishment for hoaxes never received a hearing and no one has introduced similar legislation this year.
The second part of the bill that advanced expands colleges’ crime data reporting requirements.
The federal Jeanne Clery Act already says colleges and universities receiving federal funding must disclose campus crime statistics and security policies.
The House bill would mandate schools send that data to the state Commission on Higher Education or the state technical college board, as well as the State Law Enforcement Division.
An email containing these reports would also have to be sent to students before the first day of classes each fall.
Crimes included in the report would include allegations of homicide, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and arson on property owned, leased or controlled by a college. The report must say whether the crime involved a college student or employee or whether those involved weren’t part of the campus.
Rep. Hamilton Grant said he was on the campus of SC State, his alma mater, earlier in the day before the homecoming shootings took place.
“I think what this bill is doing is helping all of our institutions not only be safer but also give that reassurance to parents that we are doing everything we can as universities and as a state to help,” the Columbia Democrat said.
The pair of shootings, which were not related, happened several hours after the football game.
Neither of the victims, a 19-year-old woman who died after she was shot outside a campus dorm and a man who was injured in a shooting that took place about a quarter-mile away, were students at the historically Black university.
As of December, police had arrested four teens from the Midlands for carrying guns on campus. One of the men is accused of pulling a handgun from under the passenger seat of his vehicle and firing it twice during the shooting where a man was injured. But police have yet to connect anyone to the fatal dorm shooting, The Post and Courier reported.
