As the legal maneuvering continues over whether Eastern Michigan University should have warned students after a murder on its campus in December, the university’s embattled president sought — and won — a clarification of an important point in a U.S. Department of Education report released on Tuesday (The Chronicle, July 5).

At issue is when the president, John A. Fallon III, knew that the death was being investigated as a murder. The report says Michigan State Police sent letters to the president referring to the case as a homicide, and suggests that he received them before a suspect was arrested, in February.

Mr. Fallon, who has maintained that the arrest was his first indication that a crime had occurred, asked the department to make clear that he did not receive the letters until after the arrest. On Wednesday, a department official did just that, in a letter to Mr. Fallon.

The timing of the police letters is one factor in the department’s argument that Eastern Michigan should have issued a “timely warning” to the campus, as required by the federal crime-reporting law known as the Clery Act.

“We did not mean to imply that you were in possession of these letters prior to the arrest of the suspect,” the letter says. “The two letters were dated after the time that the suspect was arrested.”

Mr. Fallon was pleased with the correction. “I am hopeful that the DOE’s correction will help everyone to better understand the sequence of events,” he said in a written statement.

In recent weeks, some faculty members have called for the president’s ouster. Because of the murder case and other incidents, he is “ill suited to run the university,” they say. —Sara Lipka