Underreporting the number of sexual assaults, USC risk being penalized for violating the Clery Act (Creative Commons.)

USC officials stated that they failed to report 13 accounts of sexual assaults to federal officials between 2010 and 2011, bringing the total number of assaults in two years up to 39 cases. Occidental College also admitted that they have failed to include 24 cases in the same period of time, which increased the total assaults to 36.

The failure to report the correct number of sexual assault cases may be regarded as the potential violation of federal law.

 The two universities, if found liable, may be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars each under the federal Clery Act, the law established in 1990 that obligates schools to report campus crime statistics to the Department of Education.

Both colleges are still under federal investigation for the violation.

Read more about the USC and Occidental College sexual assault scandals at the LA Times.

Reach Staff Writer Taiu Kunimoto here and follow him on Twitter.