sexual assault on campus essay

Thoughts about sexual assault on college campuses

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October 21, 2021

• 22 min read

This interlude is from Martha Nussbaum’s book, Citadels of Pride: Sexual Abuse, Accountability, and Reconciliation , published by W. W. Norton & Company in May 2021.

So far we have traced the evolution of legal standards for sexual assault and sexual harassment, and their current defects and challenges. There is, however, a significant area of our national discussion that is not fully covered by these discussions, because it involves a complex and uneasy mixture of federal law (Title IX, discussed in Chapter 5) and informal tribunals: sexual assault and harassment on college campuses. Because my previous discussions have covered the most salient issues in each area of law, I need not devote a full chapter to this case, nor do I wish such a disproportionate focus to suggest that women who attend college deserve more attention than women who do not. Unequal access to higher education is already a major problem of justice in our society, compounding other disadvantages based on race and class. There is no reason to perpetuate the injustice by paying more attention to the problems of those women who have managed to arrive at a college or university. One of the great strengths of the traditions I have described is the fact that working-class and minority women (for example Cheryl Araujo, Mechelle Vinson, Mary Carr) have been among their salient plaintiffs.

Yet, because the institutional structures are different, the topic of campus assault requires separate treatment, albeit briefly. Nobody knows exactly how large a problem this is, but one recent survey by the Association of American Universities found that around 20 percent of female undergraduates are victims of sexual assault or sexual misconduct at some point during their college life. 1 Other studies have found frequent sexual abuse of males as well, amounting to 6 to 8 percent. Although there are disputes over methodology and definition, there’s no doubt about the severity of the issue. It would appear, however, that attending college does not make a woman more likely to suffer sexual assault. 2

Sexual harassment and sexual assault have long included abuses of power between faculty and students, but on the whole, these cases have been understood as workplace abuses of power, and are dealt with under clear public rules, in much the manner of other workplaces. Thus, Chapter 5 has already basically dealt with these cases. In this Interlude I focus on student-student assault and harassment.

The literature on this topic is vast and controversies are heated, in part because the Obama administration guidelines have now been replaced by different guidelines developed by the Department of Education under the aegis of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. However, the controversies cross political lines. Thus the group of Harvard Law School professors who protested against the Obama guidelines as unfair to accused men, anticipating the DeVos critique (I’ll describe their intervention as Stage Two below) included some conservatives, but also faculty from the left and even extreme left of the faculty.

I’ll cover the salient issues briefly, without discussing all the ins and outs of all the controversies. Thus the intention of this brief discussion is to indicate, in a general way, how my overall view in this book’s detailed chapters would approach campus cases, rather than to construct a comprehensive argument. 3

A large proportion of sexual assaults and alleged sexual assaults occur when one party, or usually both parties, have been drinking heavily. Heavy drinking makes memory gappy and adjudication very difficult. In general campuses need to do much better with alcohol education and treatment. But one recommendation that most college administrators would support is: lower the drinking age. This approach seems counterintuitive, but it is really sensible. Right now, if adults are present where there is under-age drinking (and most students are under twenty-one), they can be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. So they refrain from providing badly needed supervision, including help for students who have passed out. If the drinking age were reduced to eighteen, adults could attend parties and be prepared to give assistance.

Another alcohol-related issue that needs addressing, in both education and adjudication: sex with a person who has passed out or is close to that point is an assault. This is a species of my point about affirmative consent, but it needs to be repeated again and again. The standard, however, is far from clear in application. Many cases before campus tribunals concern the thorny and as yet unresolved question of how impaired a person must be in order not to be capable of decision-making. Since the evidence comes, typically, from two impaired individuals, it is hard for them to remember how impaired they were. Third-party evidence is usually helpful, but is not always available.

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Campus Tribunals

There is considerable confusion in the public mind over why campuses do not simply turn accusations over to the police. So it’s important to point out that campuses have membership conditions, usually spelled out in the admissions contract, that go beyond the letter of the law and that need to be enforced by the campus itself. Plagiarism, not attending class, cheating on exams–all of these things are likely to be punished, sometimes with suspension or expulsion, even though they are not crimes. Similarly campuses may adopt sexual requirements that go beyond the law. Some of these are extreme: honor codes at some religious schools penalize all non-marital sexual conduct. I think such restrictions are counterproductive, creating cultures of silence (if a woman discloses that she has been raped, she can be penalized for engaging in sex). But there are also some reasonable requirements, such as affirmative consent, that are not necessarily the law of the land.

Moreover, the criminal justice system takes a long time, and victims need swift justice in order to deal with the trauma and go forward as students.

Finally, if a perpetrator is convicted in the criminal justice system, that record is ruinous for future life and employment. Campus convictions come in degrees, and many involve mandatory counseling and other lesser penalties. For this reason, having the criminal justice system as the only option, would deter reporting and bringing charges, since victims often hesitate before ruining the perpetrator’s life, and yet they seek some measure of recognition. They want the wrong done to them to be acknowledged—both that it happened and that it was wrong—and they want accountability for the perpetrator; but typically they are not seeking maximal revenge. Nor do they want lengthy involvement with the formal criminal justice system.

These are reasons why campus tribunals are not replaceable by the criminal justice system. However, it must also be said that these tribunals often do their job poorly. Faculty and administrators who serve on them are rarely well trained, and they do not always understand the quasi-legal issues with clarity. Procedures are often poorly defined, and the accused, who typically lack legal representation, are at a disadvantage.

Procedural Issues for Tribunals

How, then, can these tribunals be made to work better?

In this section I’ll refer to several key stages in the debate. Stage One was the “Dear Colleague” letter issued by the Obama administration, laying out standards to which all universities must conform to receive federal money. 4 Stage Two involved a series of objections to these standards, some issued by Betsy DeVos once she became secretary of education, 5 but similar objections were raised earlier by legal professionals—most famously by a group of twenty-eight Harvard Law School professors, drawn from both the left and the right, in a letter published initially in the Boston Globe but widely reprinted. 6 Next, in Stage Three, came the new Department of Education draft rule, which, like all administrative rules was subject to “notice and comment,” 7 and received over 124,000 comments. 8 Finally, in Stage Four (May 2020), the Department of Education issued its Final Rule, which is now legally binding on all colleges and universities that receive federal money. 9 I’ll proceed issue by issue.

First, all involved need to get clear about the best burden of proof. This issue has been one of the largest political disputes. Three standards are currently in use in our legal system. The most stringent, used throughout the United States in the criminal justice system, is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Many countries do not use this standard for criminal trials, but our tradition has judged that convicting an innocent person is more heinous and more to be avoided than letting a guilty person go free. Together with this exacting standard, our criminal justice system gives the accused a constitutional right to the “effective” and cost-free assistance of legal counsel, although great disparities still exist between public defenders provided free of charge and the sort of lawyer that a more affluent defendant typically would engage—not always because of quality, but because public defenders are overworked and usually don’t have enough time to devote to each client. But at least there is cost-free representation. Furthermore, our Constitution’s “confrontation clause” gives accused parties the right to confront witnesses testifying to their guilt. Over time other rights have been inferred from constitutional guarantees, the most famous being the Miranda warnings that must be read to defendants on arrest, warning them of their right to counsel and their right to remain silent. So our system is protective of defendants in multiple ways.

In civil trials, the standard, instead, is “preponderance of the evidence,” which means anything over 50 percent. Obviously this is a much weaker standard. Nor are free lawyers always provided in civil cases (some states do, most don’t). Still, the civil litigation system has firm procedural structures that safeguard the parties—especially a lengthy period of “discovery,” which gives both sides a chance to examine the other side’s evidence. Without such structural safeguards, and without legal counsel assisting the parties, many people feel that the “preponderance” standard is likely to lead to error.

A third intermediate standard is “clear and convincing evidence,” which is used in ways specified by the relevant state laws, often in areas such as paternity and child custody. This standard is typically thought to mean that it is about 75 percent likely that the person did what is alleged.

Before the “Dear Colleague” letter issued by the Obama administration, 10 most universities used “clear and convincing evidence” as the standard in sexual assault tribunals. The Obama administration insisted, instead, on the civil “preponderance of the evidence” standard. The Harvard Law School faculty letter, and DeVos in her own remarks, held that this standard was not protective enough of the accused. So far, it seems that nobody favors the “reasonable doubt” standard, which would be very difficult to apply in the informal and evidentially challenged situation of a tribunal. So the choice is between the other two standards, and in the end the Department of Education’s Final Rule gives every college that choice.

It’s important to be clear that a college tribunal will not take away a defendant’s liberty. That dire consequence is our legal system’s primary reason for choosing reasonable doubt. Courts, however, have repeatedly held that educational opportunities are economic or property interests, not matters of freedom. So it seems that there is nothing at all odd about using either the civil justice standard of preponderance, or the tougher standard of clear and convincing evidence. This is where the debate occurs.

In real life, both sides have merit. Preponderance defenders believe, rightly, that in the typical alcohol-fueled interaction any stronger standard will be very difficult to meet. However, it is also true that education, albeit a property interest, is one of special defining importance in our society. So it’s important to be protective of the accused. And the civil standard is probably a bad idea in a setting that lacks the procedural safeguards that are usually present in civil trials. Clear and convincing makes more sense, I believe; but if a school should opt for preponderance—as I said, the Final Rule ultimately, and rather surprisingly, gives institutions a choice between these two—a careful tribunal would probably think in terms of a kind of preponderance plus, not necessarily convicting someone where the evidence suggests a mere 50.5 percent likelihood of guilt. The 50.5 approach would really not be protective enough of the accused. Many preponderance-based tribunals actually interpret the standards somewhat more strongly. Whatever the standard, members of tribunals need better training about the whole issue of evidence and the burden of proof.

A second issue of great importance is the definition of sexual harassment. The campus process typically runs together the two things our legal system has carefully kept apart—namely sexual assault or abuse, and (workplace) sexual harassment. There is no harm in this combination so long as sub-definitions are clearly drawn. Sexual assault is typically defined as a single act, not a pattern of actions: you only need to rape a woman once to be guilty of rape! Sexual harassment, by contrast, has two forms. If there is a quid pro quo, a single act suffices. But in “hostile environment” harassment, the plaintiff needs to show a pattern of actions that are sufficiently “serious” and “pervasive,” as well as “unwelcome.” One demeaning comment or gross overture will not suffice. This distinction seems correct.

In terms of this legal background, the Dear Colleague letter was far from adequate. It defined sexual harassment as “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” including “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, non-verbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” This meant in practice that one gross or demeaning comment, with no prior evidence of its unwelcomeness, would be actionable. The Department of Education’s Final Rule, by contrast (Stage Four), hews closely to legal standards accepted elsewhere in our legal system. There are three categories of sexual harassment: (1) “any instance of quid pro quo harassment by a school’s employee,” (2) “any unwelcome conduct that a reasonable person would find so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it denies a person equal educational access”; and (3) “any instance of sexual assault as defined in the Clery Act [a federal statute dealing with campus security], dating violence, domestic violence, or stalking, as defined in the Violence Against Women Act.” In other words, a single unannounced act can still be sexual assault or a quid pro quo, but verbal harassment must form a pattern that meets the Supreme Court standard of pervasiveness and severity, as determined from the point of view of a reasonable observer. The Final Rule protects someone who makes a deeply offensive remark without advance notice of its unwelcomeness and who does not persist.

On most grounds the Department of Education’s Final Rule is an advance over the Obama administration’s rule, and also over the Department of Education’s first rule (Stage Three), under DeVos, which did not include dating violence, domestic violence, or stalking. The Final Rule is perhaps too narrow in its requirement that the accuser show that the harassment is not just severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, but that it also has a deleterious effect on the person’s equal educational access. Campuses are academic organizations, but they are also social organizations. Social harassment does not always affect someone’s ability to study, and why should that need to be shown? Why isn’t the poisoning of the person’s campus social life sufficient? There are other issues that have been raised, but on balance the “notice and comment” process seems to have worked pretty well.

I shall not go into the details of the various discussions of the questioning and confrontation process in the old and new rules. What I want to focus on, instead, is what I consider to be one of the largest problems with campus tribunals, which has not been addressed by any of these rules: the lack of access to free legal counsel for the accused. Most institutions not only do not provide a lawyer for the accused party; they actively discourage the hiring of lawyers. Typically the accused is permitted to have one supporter or advisor, but when the accused asks if this person can be a lawyer, they are usually discouraged. This is wrong. “Advisors” are typically faculty or administrators who have no legal training and who cannot do an energetic job of defending their client’s rights. And it is also wrong to require people to hire their own lawyers. Free legal assistance would go a long way to dispelling the worries of the twenty-eight Harvard Law School faculty members (Stage Two) about the system’s unfairness. Columbia University does provide free legal counsel for the accused, and so, now, does Harvard Law School (though not the rest of Harvard). My own university has recently begun to implement a policy offering free legal counsel to both defendants and plaintiffs. I have not been able to find out how many other institutions do this. And some federal grant money is available to support accused students at state universities. But the linchpin of our justice system is legal representation. Perhaps this requirement could be waived for minor offenses for which the likely penalty is alcohol counseling, for example; but in cases where the accused faces expulsion it should be mandatory, no matter what it costs. Colleges and universities have many doctors, nurses, and psychologists on their payrolls. And they do have a staff of lawyers, only not for this purpose. They should enlarge their legal departments to include lawyers at the service of students, for just this sort of problem.

I’ve said that tribunals are often poorly trained. The best solution to this problem, since membership of tribunals rotates, is mandatory sexual assault and sexual harassment training for all faculty and administrators. Such training is now required in most universities, as it is in most businesses. At the University of Chicago, each administrator and faculty member must complete the course online every year. It is not perfect, but it does supply a uniform level of awareness.

The Title IX Process

A welcome element of experienced professionalism is now supplied by the presence of Title IX offices on campuses. Typically they do face-to-face training as well as online training, though not as often. But they also play a crucial role through a strong norm of mandatory reporting, which is helping to close the information gap. If a student discloses sexual harassment or assault to any faculty member or administrator, that person is required immediately to inform the Title IX coordinator, giving the complainant’s name. The coordinator will then contact the complainant, typically promising her complete confidentiality and anonymity if she requests it. The complainant usually also has decisional autonomy: nothing will be done, and the alleged perpetrator will not be contacted, unless the complainant gives a go-ahead. Meanwhile the coordinator can advise the complainant about how the process works.

Mandatory reporting is controversial. Many have feared that it will discourage disclosures: the minute you open up to someone you trust, the information also goes to someone else you don’t know. But on the whole mandatory reporting seems wise. The Title IX staff, in my experience, behave with restraint and professionalism, protecting confidentiality. Once faculty and administrators have experience with the coordinators, my experience is that they do come to trust them. And faculty (and others) are relieved of a huge burden of dealing with the whole of a traumatized person’s subsequent life and choices. Faculty usually are not equipped to shoulder this burden, however well-intentioned they are.

The letter by the twenty-eight Harvard Law School professors objected to too much centralized power being vested in the Title IX office, in the scheme at first proposed by Harvard Law School in its attempt to institutionalize the Obama administration standards. The main problem they identified was that the Title IX office did both investigation and adjudication. Their letter was surely correct to say that this setup is very unfair and unwise. Harvard Law School quickly heeded their criticism, separating the two functions. The primary function of the Title IX office should be—and by now for the most part is—investigative and advisory. The tribunals themselves typically consist of faculty, and sometimes administrators, and are constituted according to procedures subject to faculty autonomy and faculty governance. They have many defects, but they are not an alien bureaucracy invading the campus, as the Harvard letter had feared.

We now need to address the gaps in the process that remain, particularly in the area of legal representation.

We have all learned a great deal from these somewhat painful debates. And progress has been made. Although in some ways DeVos has been a polarizing figure, the Final Rule adopted by the Department of Education under her aegis, thanks to the notice-and-comment process, is debatable but still arguably fair. It seems distinctly superior both to the draft rule and to the standards articulated by the Obama administration. We now need to address the gaps in the process that remain, particularly in the area of legal representation.

• Nick Anderson, Susan Svrluga, and Scott Clement, “Survey: More than 1 in 5 Female Undergrads at Top Schools Suffer Sexual Attacks,” Washington Post, September 21, 2015, https://www​.washingtonpost​.com/local/education/survey​-more​-than​-1​-in​-5​-female​-undergrads​-at​-top​-schools​-suffer​-sexual​-attacks/2015/09/19/c6c80be2​-5e29​-11e5​-b38e​-06883aacba64_story​.html​.
• Charlene L. Muehlenhard et al., “Evaluating the One-​in-​Five Statistic: Women’s Risk of Sexual Assault While in College,” Journal of Sex Research 54, no. 4 (May 16, 2017): 565, https://doi​.org/10​.1080/00224499​.2017​.1295014​. As discussed there, evidence does not support the assumption that college students experience more sexual assault than nonstudents.
• In this area, my two research assistants did such superb and meticulous work on this topic, which naturally interested them greatly, that their work is worthy of note in itself and is on file with me: Sarah Hough, “Legal Approaches toward On-​Campus Sexual Violence in the US: A Brief Overview,” unpublished paper, July 1, 2019; and Jared I. Mayer, “Memo on De Vos’s Changes to Campus Title IX Proceedings,” unpublished paper, May 20, 2020.
• National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “Dear Colleague Letter: Sexual Violence” (US Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2011), https://www​.nsvrc​.org/publications/dear​-colleague​-letter​-sexual​-violence​. The NSVRC website also contains much helpful background information.
• See “Department of Education Issues New Interim Guidance on Campus Sexual Misconduct,” US Department of Education, September 22, 2017, https://www​.ed​.gov/news/press​-releases/department​-education​-issues​-new​-interim​-guidance​-campus​-sexual​-misconduct​.
• “Rethink Harvard’s Sexual Harassment Policy” (Opinion), Boston Globe, October 14, 2014, https://www​.bostonglobe​.com/opinion/2014/10/14/rethink​-harvard​-sexual​-harassment​-policy/HFDDiZN7nU2UwuUuWMnqbM/story​.html​.
• For an overview of the notice-​and-​comment system of regulation making, see “A Guide to the Rulemaking Process,” Office of the Federal Register, January 2011, https://www​.federalregister​.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaking_process​.pdf​.
• “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance,” Federal Register, November 29, 2018, https://www​.federalregister​.gov/documents/2018/11/29/2018​-25314/nondiscrimination​-on​-the​-basis​-of​-sex​-in​-education​-programs​-or​-activities​-receiving​-federal​.
• See 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a) (2018). A helpful memo clarifying the content of the Final Rule is Apalla U. Chopra et al., “Analysis of Key Provisions of the Department of Education’s New Title IX Regulations,” O’Melveny & Myers LLP, May 15, 2020, https://www​.omm​.com/resources/alerts​-and​-publications/alerts/analysis​-of​-key​-provisions​-of​-doe​.
• National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “Dear Colleague Letter.”

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Sexual assault and rape on U.S. college campuses: Research roundup

2014 review of government reports and scholarship on the issue of sexual assault and rape on campus, as well as prevention, risks and related cultural dynamics.

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by Kristina Mastropasqua, The Journalist's Resource September 22, 2015

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Institutions of higher learning across the United States have been rocked by reports of rape and sexual assault . Federal, state and local officials have become involved , as schools work to revise their policies and procedures to prevent further incidents. A survey commissioned by the Association of American Universities, the results of which were released in September 2015 , found that more than 27% of female college seniors reported having experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact since entering college. Meanwhile, two high-profile lawsuits have kept the topic of college sexual assault in the national spotlight. In 2015, a former Florida State University student filed a lawsuit against the school for its handling of her sexual assault report and another against former Florida State football star  Jameis Winston, who she has accused of raping her in 2012 .

The research on many facets of these problems is incomplete, but new reports and data-rich studies can help deepen perspective. In December 2014, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report focusing on nearly 20 years of data related to rape and sexual assault among women ages 18 to 24. In 2014, President Obama appointed the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assaults. During the research phase, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) provided the White House with an extensive list of recommendations urging “the task force to remain focused on the true cause of the problem,” pointing out that rape is “not caused by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions of a small percentage of the community to commit a violent crime.” In fact, RAINN points out that research suggests 90% of rapes at colleges are perpetrated by 3% of college men — indicating a real issue of repeat offenders.

Part of RAINN’s recommendations includes a three-tiered approach to prevention: (1) Bystander intervention education: empowering community members to act in response to acts of sexual violence; (2) Risk-reduction messaging: empowering members of the community to take steps to increase their personal safety; and (3), General education to promote understanding of the law, particularly as it relates to the ability to consent.

Similarly, researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Justice prepared a report, “ Preventing Sexual Violence on College Campuses: Lessons from Research and Practice ,” for use by the White House Task Force. The report cites the proven effectiveness of high-school sexual violence prevention programs, which might be effectively translated into college campaigns. One of the report’s authors, Sarah DeGue, cites a 2013 study — a systematic qualitative review of risk and protective factors for sexual violence perpetration — that finds a high correlation between sexual assault and alcohol use. Therefore, college campuses that can curb the number of nearby liquor stores and instances of binge drinking could potentially reduce the number of assaults.

Although there are thousands of colleges and universities in the United States, the CDC reports that just “over 125 college and university campuses across the U.S. have affiliations with CDC’s Rape Prevention and Education program to facilitate the implementation of sexual violence prevention strategies and activities.” While much more research is needed in order to determine meaningful methodologies in preventing rape and sexual assault on campuses, the report suggests, some significant first steps would be for universities to work to build trust between administrators and the student body and to implement routine anonymous surveys for students to safely express their experiences with sexual (mis)conduct on campus.

After conducting thousands of interviews with various stakeholders, the White House released its final report in April 2014: “ Not Alone: The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault .” By increasing awareness and researching new methods for prevention, the project’s goal is to dramatically reduce the number of students — primarily female — who are sexually assaulted on campus, which stands at one in five, according to the federal Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study of 2006. A 2014 report from the National Crime Victimization Survey suggests a lower rate among college students, and journalists have noted that there is now a “dueling data” quality to these conflicting reports. (The 2006 CSA Study found that 6.1% of college males were victims of either attempted or completed sexual assault.)

The “Not Alone” report makes a series of key recommendations that begin with gauging the scope of the crisis through routine, anonymous, campus-wide surveys. From there, the Task Force encourages universities to engage their male students and encourage them to step in when someone is in trouble and become part of the solution. In addition the government has created a new website, NotAlone.gov , which provides more transparency on the issue by providing information and pathways for reporting problems.

The report also encourages universities to work to clarify what is — and what is not — consent. This is a major debate that both Time magazine and Philadelphia Magazine have covered recently. A 2013 study explores variables, such as violence, intoxication, and prior romantic relationships, that can impact acknowledged versus unacknowledged sexual assault among college women. Research has found that incoming first-year college students subscribe to a wide variety of “myths” about rape.

Below is a selection of further studies that explore the general issue of sexual assault and rape on campus, as well as prevention, risks and related cultural dynamics:

“Sexual Assault on the College Campus: Fraternity Affiliation, Male Peer Support, and Low Self-Control” Franklin, Courtney A.; Bouffard, Leana Allen; Pratt, Travis C. Criminal Justice and Behavior , 2012, Vol. 39, 1457, doi: 10.1177/0093854812456527.

Abstract: “Research on college sexual assault has focused on offender behavior to understand why men perpetrate sexual violence. Dominant theories have incorporated forms of male peer support paying particular attention to the impact of rape-supportive social relationships on woman abuse. In contrast, Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime proposes that low self-control predicts crime and other related life outcomes – including the kinds of antisocial peer relationships that the male peer support model contends causes sexual violence. The exclusion of measures of self-control on sexual assault may result in a misspecified peer support model. Accordingly, the current research empirically tests Schwartz and DeKeseredy’s male peer support model and examines the role of self-control in the larger male peer support model of sexual assault. Implications for theory and research are discussed.”

“A Randomized Controlled Trial Targeting Alcohol Use and Sexual Assault Risk among College Women at High Risk for Victimization” Gilmore, Amanda K.; Lewis, Melissa A.; George, William. Behaviour Research and Therapy , August 2015. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2015.08.007.

Abstract: “Current sexual assault risk reduction programs do not target alcohol use despite the widespread knowledge that alcohol use is a risk factor for being victimized. The current study assessed the effectiveness of a web-based combined sexual assault risk and alcohol use reduction program using a randomized control trial. A total of 207 college women between the ages of 18 and 20 who engaged in heavy episodic drinking were randomized to one of five conditions: full assessment only control condition, sexual assault risk reduction condition, alcohol use reduction condition, combined sexual assault risk and alcohol use reduction condition, and a minimal assessment only condition. Participants completed a 3-month follow-up survey on alcohol-related sexual assault outcomes, sexual assault outcomes, and alcohol use outcomes. Significant interactions revealed that women with higher incidence and severity of sexual assault at baseline experienced less incapacitated attempted or completed rapes, less incidence/severity of sexual assaults, and engaged in less heavy episodic drinking compared to the control condition at the 3-month follow-up. Web-based risk reduction programs targeting both sexual assault and alcohol use may be the most effective way to target the highest risk sample of college students for sexual assault: those with a sexual assault history and those who engage in heavy episodic drinking.”

“Correlates of Rape while Intoxicated in a National Sample of College Women” Mohler, Meichun; Dowdall, George W.; Koss, Mary P.; Wechsler, Henry. Journal of Studies on Alcohol , January 2004, Vol. 65, 37-45.

Abstract: “ Objective: Heavy alcohol use is widespread among college students, particularly in those social situations where the risk of rape rises. Few studies have provided information on rapes of college women that occur when they are intoxicated. The purpose of the present study was to present prevalence data for rape under the condition of intoxication when the victim is unable to consent and to identify college and individual-level risk factors associated with that condition. Method: The study utilizes data from 119 schools participating in three Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study surveys. The analytic sample of randomly selected students includes 8,567 women in the 1997 survey, 8,425 in the 1999 survey, and 6,988 in the 2001 survey. Results : Roughly one in 20 (4.7%) women reported being raped. Nearly three quarters (72%) of the victims experienced rape while intoxicated. Women who were under 21, were white, resided in a sorority house, used illicit drugs, drank heavily in high school and attended colleges with high rates of heavy episodic drinking were at higher risk of rape while intoxicated. Conclusions : The high proportion of rapes found to occur when women were intoxicated indicates the need for alcohol prevention programs on campuses that address sexual assault, both to educate men about what constitutes rape and to advise women of risky situations. The findings that some campus environments are associated with higher levels of both drinking and rape will help target rape prevention programs at colleges.”

“ Women’s Risk Perception and Sexual Victimization: A Review of the Literature ” Gidycz, Christine A.; McNamara, John R.; Edwards, Katie M. Aggression and Violent Behavior, September-October 2012, Vol. 11, Issue 5, 441-456, doi: 10.1016/j.avb.2006.01.004.

Abstract: “This article reviews empirical and theoretical studies that examined the relationship between risk perception and sexual victimization in women. Studies examining women’s general perceptions of risk for sexual assault as well as their ability to identify and respond to threat in specific situations are reviewed. Theoretical discussions of the optimistic bias and cognitive–ecological models of risk recognition are discussed in order to account for findings in the literature. Implications for interventions with women as well as recommendations for future research are provided.”

“Bystander Education Training for Campus Sexual Assault Prevention: An Initial Meta-analysis” Katz, J.; Moore, J. Violence and Victims , 2013, Vol. 28, Issue 6, 1054-1067.

Abstract: “The present meta-analysis evaluated the effectiveness of bystander education programs for preventing sexual assault in college communities. Undergraduates trained in bystander education for sexual assault were expected to report more favorable attitudes, behavioral proclivities, and actual behaviors relative to untrained controls. Data from 12 studies of college students (N = 2,926) were used to calculate 32 effect sizes. Results suggested moderate effects of bystander education on both bystander efficacy and intentions to help others at risk. Smaller but significant effects were observed regarding self-reported bystander helping behaviors, (lower) rape-supportive attitudes, and (lower) rape proclivity, but not perpetration. These results provide initial support for the effectiveness of in-person bystander education training. Nonetheless, future longitudinal research evaluating behavioral outcomes and sexual assault incidence is needed.”

“Fear of Rape among College Women: A Social Psychological Analysis” Pryor, D.W.; Hughes, M.R. Violence Vict. , 2013, Vol. 28, Issue 3, 443-465.

Abstract: “This article examines social psychological underpinnings of fear of rape among college women. We analyze data from a survey of 1,905 female undergraduates to test the influence of 5 subjective perceptions about vulnerability and harm: unique invulnerability, gender risk, defensibility, anticipatory shame, and attribution of injury. We include 3 sources of crime exposure in our models: past sexual victimization, past noncontact violent victimization, and structural risk measured by age, parent’s income, and race. Separate measures of fear of stranger and acquaintance rape are modeled, including variables tapping current versus anticipatory fear, fear on campus versus everywhere, and fear anytime versus at night. The data show that fear of rape among college women appears more grounded in constructed perceptions of harm and danger than in past violent experiences.”

“Necessary But Not Sufficient: Sexual Assault Information on College and University Websites” Lund, Emily M.; Thomas, Katie B. Psychology of Women Quarterly , August 2015. doi: 10.1177/0361684315598286.

Abstract: “The objective of our study was to investigate the availability, location, and content of sexual assault information presented on college and university websites. A random sample of 102 accredited, non-profit, bachelors-granting U.S. colleges and universities was selected for webcoding. Websites were coded for the availability and location of sexual assault information, including what resources and information were provided and whether topics such as date rape, consent, and victim blaming were addressed. Ninety (88.2%) of the 102 colleges and universities in our sample had sexual assault information available in their domains. University policy (83.3%) and contact information for law enforcement (72.2%) and other resources (56.7–82.2%) were often included, but most websites failed to provide information on issues related to sexual assault, such as discouraging victim blaming (35.6%) and encouraging affirmative consent (30.0%). Colleges and universities should consider updating the sexual assault information on their websites with the assistance of local, expert practitioners in order to provide more comprehensive, organized, useful, and user-friendly information on sexual assault prevention and intervention.”

“The Role of University Health Centers in Intervention and Prevention of Campus Sexual Assault” Buchholz, Laura. Journal of the American Medical Association , August 2015, Vol. 314. doi: 10.1001/jama.2015.8213.

Summary: This article offers insight into the role that university health centers play in preventing campus sexual assault and providing support to assault victims through programs in areas such as counseling, medical care and survivor advocacy.

“To Whom Do College Women Confide Following Sexual Assault? A Prospective Study of Predictors of Sexual Assault Disclosure and Social Reactions” Orchowski, Lindsay M., Gidycz, Christine A. Violence Against Women, March 2012, Vol. 18, No. 3, 264-288, doi: 10.1177/1077801212442917.

Abstract: “A prospective methodology was used to explore predictors of sexual assault disclosure among college women, identify who women tell about sexual victimization, and examine the responses of informal support providers (N = 374). Women most often confided in a female peer. Increased coping via seeking emotional support, strong attachments, and high tendency to disclose stressful information predicted adolescent sexual assault disclosure and disclosure over the 7-month interim. Less acquaintance with the perpetrator predicted disclosure over the follow-up, including experiences of revictimization. Victim and perpetrator alcohol use at the time of the assault also predicted disclosure over the follow-up. Implications are presented.”

“Community Responsibility for Preventing Sexual Violence: A Pilot Study with Campus Greeks and Intercollegiate Athletes” Moynihan, Mary M., Banyard, Victoria L. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, October 2008, Vol. 36, Issue 1-2, 23-38, doi:10.1080/10852350802022274.

Summary: “Previous research has noted higher incidences of sexual violence on campus among members of campus Greeks and athletes and the need to do prevention programs with them. This article presents the results of an exploratory pilot study of a sexual violence prevention program with members of one fraternity, sorority, men’s and women’s intercollegiate athletic team. The program, experimentally evaluated and found to be effective with a general sample of undergraduates, was used to determine its efficacy specifically with Greeks and athletes. The model on which the program is based calls for prevention efforts that take a wider community approach rather than simply targeting individuals as potential perpetrators or victims. Results from repeated-measures analysis of variance indicate that the program worked overall. Future directions are discussed.”

Keywords: crime, higher education, sex crimes

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Kristina Mastropasqua

Laurell Sinai

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Research-Based Argument Essay

Sexual assault and rape are serious social issues in the United States. Sexual assault can happen to anyone, regardless of age, gender, race, or sexual orientation; However, women are most commonly the victims of sexual assault. Many students in colleges don’t know the true meaning behind sexual assault, which increases the rates of college rape. Sexual assault is “any unwanted sexual act against a person or without a person’s consent—any sexual, physical verbal or visual act that forces a person against their will to have unwanted sexual contact or attention” (“Sexual Assault and Rape”). Many colleges disregard campus rapes in order to keep their reputation intact. Caroline Heldman discusses in her article how “no college in the U.S. has come up with a plan to effectively shift rape culture on their campus”. People need to start understanding that if this shift does not occur soon, we are putting girls all over the world in danger.

Rape is known to be the most common violent crime on American college campuses today. Rana Sampson goes into further detail in her article on how college years are the most vulnerable for women since “women ages 16 to 24 experience rape at rates four times higher than the assault rate of all women”. College women are more at risk for rape and other forms of sexual assault than women the same age, but not in college. Sampson state that it is estimated that almost 25 percent of college women have been victims of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14. Many students in college experience rape but decide not to report it. Many victims think that their college will not do anything about it. Jed Rubenfeld explains that “because of low arrest and conviction rates, lack of confidentiality, and fear they won’t be believed, only a minuscule percentage of college women who are raped — perhaps only 5 percent or less — report the assault to the police. Research suggests that more than 90 percent of campus rapes are committed by a relatively small percentage of college men — possibly as few as 4 percent — who rape repeatedly, averaging six victims each. Yet, these serial rapists overwhelmingly remain at large, escaping serious punishment”. This raises the question of why should women feel confident enough to come forward about their sexual assault without reassurance that the state and college will correctly handle the situation?

One college that has been convicted of continuous mishandlings of sexual assault is Vanderbilt. Even though, Vanderbilt is known to be one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States. Recently, there was an ugly rape case involving their football team that just can’t get worse. On the second floor of the Gillette House dorm at Vanderbilt, there was a broken door that has been knocked off. When school officials checked the security cameras, they found one of their highly rated football players who just transferred, Brandon Vandenburg. Bobby Allyn published in 2013, only a few months after the initial assault and stated that “hat officials eventually discovered about the events of that night would lead to the indictment of four football players for rape and another for alleged involvement in a cover-up”. On a Saturday night in June, Vandenburg went out with a 21-year-old student from Oklahoma who he had been casually dating. When they both returned to Vandenburg’s dorm after a long night of drinking, the girl was seen to be completely unconscious. Vandenburg called down three of his teammates, Cory, Brandon, and JaBorian, to help him bring the girl into his room. Some time after, 4 football players entered the room; different objects were used to penetrate the victim. Vandenburg took pictures and videos on his phone, and sent the others the footage. This was used as the main component of evidence during the trial. Even though there is such a graphic video, the coach of the football team claims, that “people always speculate and gossip. There is no truth to that accusation whatsoever. It’s inflammatory” (Allyn). Vanderbilt has kept quiet about these accusations until further notice. They will do whatever they can in order to keep this story under wraps. Situations like this is exactly why women do not usually come forward.

Similarly, Emerson College’s handling of a student’s sexual assault case caused so much stress that the victim ended up in the hospital and eventually dropped out of school, a new lawsuit contends (Kingkade). In April 2012, Jillian Doherty had consensual sex with a male student, but declined when he requested anal sex, it was then that he choked her and forcibly penetrated her. Doherty reported the assault in March 2013, and concluded with a final hearing in May. At the hearing, Tyler Kingkade writes that “the accused ‘was allowed to present new evidence, a letter of character, from a fellow Emerson student, who had no involvement with the hearing, assault, or the investigation’, the suit claimed.” According to Doherty, she was not given an opportunity to view the letter. The suspect was found not responsible because both he and the victim admitted to have been drinking before the incident and the court ruled her statement “inconsistent”. As a result of the first hearing, Doherty told Huffington Post “It was just the worst feeling in the world knowing you’re telling the truth and no one believes you.” Doherty was granted an appeal in the summer of 2013, and a new hearing took place in October. After the second hearing, the accused was found responsible for the assault and was expelled from school. By the time the hearing was over, the damage has already been done. Doherty’s grades dropped she had chronic depression and PTSD. She began “an outpatient treatment program at Arbor Hospital to address the emotional distress from reporting her assault” (Kingkade). According to the lawsuit, she was not granted academic accommodations to do her class work from home during that time, and unfortunately had to leave Emerson in Spring 2014, which was her dream school. The suit against Emerson claims that they violated the campus safety law, the Clery Act, by underreporting the sexual assault. This further proves, that even with laws against sexual assault are in tact, colleges and the government are still not handling these situations correctly. All in all, Walt Bogdanich explains that “school disciplinary panels are a world unto themselves, operating in secret with scant accountability and limited protections for the accuser or the accused.”

The difference in the amount of people who do and do not report their sexual assault is overwhelming.About 80 percent of campus rapes are not reported to police, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report on sexual assault. Julia Glum states that “researchers found that 26 percent of students and 23 percent of non-students chose not to report their rapes because it was too personal to tell police. More non-students than students said they didn’t report the crime because, they believed, the police could not or would not do anything to help.” Victims most of the times feel like they do not have a voice after being sexually assaulted. Society needs to seem more open and understanding when a situation like rape arises. Many victims of rape blame themselves for what has happened to them. They usually put the blame on what they were wearing, what they drank, where they were, and the time of day etc. These victims have to understand that no one is perfect and they were in a situation that they could not have controlled. Rebecca Nagle, co-director of the Baltimore-based activist group FORCE, told International Business Times earlier this week “We live in a culture where survivors are taught … to doubt your experiences, We need to build a culture of support for survivors”. Sexual assault is never the victim’s fault. You deserve to feel safe and supported. From the perspective of a university administrator who is mostly concerned with his school’s reputation, a rape that goes unreported is a rape that never actually happened (Kitchener). This shows exactly why women do not report their assault, because of the clear mindset of a highly respected school administrator.

There are a couple of things we know for sure about rape on college campuses, but here are two: It happens, and universities lie about it (Stern). Many colleges decide to keep their rape victims in the shadow and will decide not to tell state police of what has happened. “’When it comes to sexual assault and rape, the norm for universities and colleges is to downplay the situation and the numbers’, researcher Corey Rayburn Yung, a law professor at the University of Kansas, said in a release ’ (Timm). In 2006, Fox News reported that administrators at Eastern Michigan University covered up a rape and murder of a student, 22-year-old Laura Dickson, all while letting her parents think that she died of natural causes. Joseph Shapiro explains that, “despite federal laws created to protect students, colleges and universities have failed to protect women from this epidemic of sexual assault.” Colleges have a lot to lose when they admit to having a rape problem on campus. College codes and procedures were designed to punish for plagiarism and underage drinking, not to prove the crime of sexual assault. Many administrators use that excuse to justify them keeping the rape a secret. Many women face interrogations by administrators who do not seem to know what a rape exam is.

Many colleges will try to resolve the problem on their own. But, instead of making it better, they only make it worse. Last year, Bridgewater State University withheld the names of two men charged with rape on campus and did not notify any students or faculty about the incident. The school didn’t notify its 11-member board of trustees. Maria Papadopoulos quoted when Richard M. Freeland said, “Students and parents have a right to be concerned if they learn about such activity from the media, rather than from campus officials.” “O’Neill said withholding the names of accused rapists from a college community and the public is ‘ridiculous’ – and it shows that university officials are reluctant to be transparent about crimes reported on campus.”

In 2012 at Grinnell College, Emily Barlett received text messages from a guy “if you ever tell anyone God help you”, only ten minutes after he left her dorm room. That night, she told an advocate on campus that she was sexually assaulted. A few days later she went to campus security to file an official report. College administrators decided to set up a meditation session between the rapist and the victim, a practice the U.S. Department of Education prohibited a year before. The meditation was a failure because it re-traumatized the victim and didn’t bring a resolution to her case (Kingkade). She later took the case to a college court, where they found the accused not responsible for sexual misconduct, despite the photos of deep bruising on her body and the text message he sent the victim-threatening her if she told anyone about what had happened. “He was deemed responsible for “disorderly misconduct” and “psychological harm” and punished with a year of probation” (Kingkade). The accused was still allowed to play baseball and take the same courses as the victim. At Grinnell College, students were forced to attend class with men the school knew have sexually assaulted them. The college made the offenders write short apology letters to the victim.

Some women started to struggle in their classes due to stress related to their assaults, they say, the college decided to push them off campus. In many cases, the victim would be placed on academic suspension while the offender would be allowed to return to campus. When one of the professors at Grinnell told the administration office that a victim was placed right next to her offender, the college said there was nothing they could do about it. During one case at Grinell, the attacker landed an on campus job as the head of security, just after being accused. The way Grinell has handled their sexual assaults has driven two victims away from their dream school and caused daily anxiety for the third, who decided to stay on campus. The college constantly places the blame of them not doing anything about the accusations on the fact that it is a small campus. They believe that also because Grinell, Iowa is a small city, there isn’t any way for the victim and the attacker not to run into each other, so things at school cannot be any different than the two running into each other on the street. In 2013, almost a year after the assault, Emily Barlett decided to transfer to the University of Missouri. In 2014, Grinell sent Barlett a letter asking her to reconsider returning to the college, and had the indecency to ask her why she left. Another high profile case that occurred at Grinell, only a few months after Barletts initial assault. India Vannoy was assaulted by a classmate in her scholarship program. She filed school conduct charges against the male student, as did another women who was assaulted by the same man. The hearing occurred 5 months after the assault. Grinell found him to be responsible for psychological trauma in Vannoy’s case. He was suspended for a short 3 semesters before returning to campus. Vannoy was clinically diagnosed with PTSD and took the spring 2013 semester to recover. She returned in the fall, but landed on academic probation. Grinell promised to do anything to help her out during the ordeal, but Vannoy said that she did not receive any assistance. Instead, an administrator told her she was “mentally unstable” and suggested, “she take time off to get over it”. She was later placed on academic suspension, banning her from returning to campus; meaning that the attacker is allowed back on campus, but Vannoy is not.

The mishandling of sexual assaults led to a Senate report, it was found that 41% of schools conducted no investigation in the past 5 years, even though there were numerous complaints made by female students. Many women keep an assault a secret to prevent embarrassment, shame and the trauma of reliving the nightmare during legal proceedings. Some administrators care less about the victim, and more about their own image. Schools are terrified of the result if the world hears that such an awful crime has been committed on their campus. Colleges fear that any negative publicity will ruin their sterling reputations, which will result in diminished enrollment applications (Jarrett). Colleges need to step out of their own alternative world, and step back into reality. Gregg Gregg Jarrett explains that “these cases reveal an unsettling fact: many colleges are dilatory or derelict in failing to prevent attacks. Once they do occur, campus investigations have proven to be scant, shoddy and incompetent. All too often, complaints are brushed aside; local police are kept in the dark, survivors are encouraged to drop it and crimes are covered up. The alleged victim is victimized all over again.” Colleges will not change their course of action unless they are forced to do so. Until then, not much will be done about correctly handling a campus rape.

Since all of these mishandlings of sexual assault cases, the government was forced to make laws in order to prevent colleges from mishandling rape. A few of them are: “Yes Means Yes”, “Title IX”, and “It’s On Us”. “Governor Jerry Brown of California signed Senate Bill 967, nationally known as the “Yes Means Yes” bill, into action on September 28” (Hwang). The “Yes Means Yes” bill aims to provide help for victims of sexual assault on college campuses. This bill requires colleges to define affirmative consent as a clear “yes” rather than the absence of a verbal “no”. Additionally, the bill mandates that colleges educate their students on consent and sexual assault in order to prevent further rapes (Hwang). Senator Kevin de Leon of California said in a speech “our sisters, our daughters, our nieces — every woman deserves the right to pursue the dream of higher education without being threatened by the nightmare of violence and sexual abuse.” The bill also provides multiple resources funded by the state in which victims can use to assist them in the legal process of reporting, investigating and finalizing the case. Unfortunately, as of now the bill has only been passed in California. Officials are working to pursue this bill across America. Even “President Obama decided to join Vice President Biden and American people across the country to launch the “It’s On Us” initiative- an awareness campaign to help put an end to sexual assaults on college campuses” (Somanader). “It’s On Us” asks everyone, both men and women to make a personal commitment to step off the sidelines and be a part of the mission to end the epidemic of college rape. This bill sends guidance to every school that receives federal funding on their legal obligations to prevent and to deal with sexual assaults that occur on their campuses. Adding onto the bill, Obama created the “White House task force” to protect students from sexual assault to work with colleges on developing the best practices on how to prevent and deal with sexual assault. “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity that receives federal funding” (“What is Title IX”). Even a single instance of rape or sexual assault by another student or staff member could meet the standards of getting the victim justice.

The “Yes Means Yes”, “Title IX”, and “It’s On Us” bills do not implement a transfer of power between the victim and the rapist, as they aim to give victims a fighting chance (Hwang). Sarah Yang said, “It takes a lot of strength to report in the first place, and having to deal with an administrator that doesn’t understand the whole situation is very difficult.” Many of these bills will continue to arise due to this continuously rising problem of sexual assault, giving the universities more incentive and pressure to find more evidence in reports where there is none.

College rape has been and will continue to be a huge problem around the world if people do not make an effort to put an end to it. Many colleges have experienced handling huge rape cases such as: Vanderbilt, Emerson and Grinnell. College Rape is an important topic to be educated on because many students reading this will soon be attending or are already attending college and need to know about the different ways you could get help if you are sexually assaulted. Since this is such a huge problem in many colleges today it is important for everyone to know what you could do in order to help prevent future campus rapes.

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Sexual assault on college campuses

Sexual assault on college campuses is a common problem that often goes unreported. It includes any unwanted sexual activity, from unwanted touching to rape. Alcohol and drugs often play a role in sexual assault on campuses. If you have been sexually assaulted, it is not your fault. You are not alone, and you can get help.

How common is sexual assault on college campuses?

Sexual assault is common among female students of all ages, races, and ethnicities. One in five women in college experiences sexual assault. 1

Studies show that students are at the highest risk of sexual assault in the first few months of their first and second semesters in college. 2

Women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or gay are more likely to experience sexual assault on college campuses than heterosexual women. 1

Why is sexual assault on college campuses so common?

Sexual assault happens everywhere and to women and men of all ages. But it is common on college campuses, and, among adults, sexual assault happens most often to traditionally college-age women (18–24). Colleges that get federal funding are required to publicly report sexual assault.

• Alcohol and drugs. Campus sexual assault often involves alcohol and drugs. One study found that 15% of young women experienced incapacitated rape during their first year of college. 3 Being incapacitated means these young women were raped when they could not give consent because they did not know what was happening. Many young adults use alcohol or drugs for the first time during college. Using drugs or drinking too much alcohol can make you unaware of what is happening around you and to you.
• Reporting sexual assault. Only one in five college-age women who are sexually assaulted report the attack to the police. 4 Talking about sexual assault to strangers can be difficult, but reporting sexual assault can prevent attackers from hurting others and help you feel more in control. Reporting also helps school officials make arrangements so you do not have to have contact with someone who assaulted you.
• Peer pressure. College-age women often live with people their own age on campus, rather than parents or other older adults. Students may feel peer pressure to participate in social activities like drinking, using drugs, going to parities, or engaging in sexual activities that make them uncomfortable. Being forced into unwanted sexual activity for social acceptance is a type of sexual coercion .

What steps can I take to be safer on a college campus?

You cannot prevent sexual assault because violent or abusive behavior is always the responsibility of the person who is violent or abusive. However, you can take steps to be safer around others and help keep others safe from potential perpetrators: 5 , 6 , 7

• Get to know someone well before spending time alone with him or her. College is often about meeting new people and making new friends. But do not rely only on someone you just met to keep you safe.
• Go to parties or hangouts with friends. Arrive together, check in with each other, and leave together. Talk about your plans for the evening so that everyone knows what to expect.
• Meet first dates or new people in a public place.
• Listen to your instincts or “gut feelings.” Most women who are sexually assaulted know the person who assaults them. If you find yourself alone with someone you don’t trust, leave. If you feel uncomfortable in any situation for any reason, leave. You are the only person who gets to say whether you feel safe.
• Be aware of your alcohol or drug intake. Research shows that about half of sexual assault victims had been drinking when the attack happened. 8 Drinking alcohol does not make the attack your fault, but using alcohol and drugs can lead to being unaware of what is happening around you or to you.
• Keep control of your own drink, because someone could put drugs or alcohol in it without you knowing.
• Get help right away if you feel drunk and haven’t drunk any alcohol or if the effects of alcohol feel stronger than usual. This can happen if someone put a date rape drug into your drink. Date rape drugs have no smell or taste and can cause you to pass out and not remember what happened.
• Be aware of your surroundings. Especially if walking alone, avoid talking on your phone or listening to music with headphones. Know where you are as you move around the campus. At night, stay in lighted areas, or ask a friend or campus security to go with you.
• Know your resources. You need to know where you can get help if you need it. Know where the campus sexual assault center, the campus police, and the campus health center are. Find the campus emergency phones and put the campus security number into your cellphone.
• Have a plan to get home. If you are going to use a ride sharing app, make sure your phone is charged. Consider keeping a credit card or cash as a backup for a taxi.

Find other tips for safety on campus at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network .

What should I do if I am sexually assaulted while in college?

If you are sexually assaulted, it is not your fault, regardless of the circumstances. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you are in a safe place, you can call 911 to report the sexual assault to the police as soon as possible.

If the sexual assault happened on campus or the person who harmed you was a student, you can also report it to school authorities for additional support. The school is required to help you continue your education. There are options to help you feel safe on campus, such as requesting to change class schedules, changing dorms, or obtaining a no-contact order. Schools that receive federal funding may provide other forms of support, such as counseling or tutoring, if you need it because of a sexual assault on campus.

What are some effects of sexual assault on campus?

Women who are sexually assaulted may face health problems that include depression , anxiety , and post-traumatic stress disorder . But they may also have trouble reporting the assault or getting help they are entitled to from the school. Women may also see the person who harmed them regularly in classes, dorms, or other places on campus, which can make it harder to recover from the assault.

One study found that among rape survivors who stayed on campus, nearly one in three had academic problems and more than one in five considered leaving school. 1

If you’ve been sexually assaulted, know that you are not alone. Learn what you can do if you’ve been sexually assaulted . This includes going to school authorities and getting help. Your school is required to help you if you’ve been assaulted on campus.

How can I be safer when studying abroad?

The risk of rape may be up to five times higher during a semester studying abroad than on a college campus in the United States. 9

When studying abroad, you can follow the same tips that can help you be safer at your home campus. These include being aware of your surroundings, always going out and staying with a group, either not drinking or limiting your drinking to a level at which you still feel in control, and watching your drink at all times.

Before you go, check out information about the country in which you will be living on the U.S. Department of State website Students Abroad . You can enroll in a program called the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to get safety information and connect with the U.S. embassy in the country where you will be studying.

Sexual Assault Support and Help for Americans Abroad offers pre-travel information , tips for staying safe , and an international crisis line .

Did we answer your question about sexual assault on campus?

For more information about sexual assault on campus, call the OWH Helpline at 1-800-994-9662 or check out these resources from the following organizations:

• End Rape on Campus — Resources and information about sexual assault and rape on college campuses.
• Reporting to Law Enforcement — Information from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
• Understanding Sexual Violence (PDF, 382 KB) — Fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Victims Connect Resource Center — Program of the National Center for Victims of Crime.
• Krebs, C., Lindquist, C., Berzofsky, M., Shook-Sa, B., Peterson, K. (2016). Campus Climate Survey Validation Study Final Technical Report . Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice. 
• Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. (2016). Campus Sexual Violence Statistics .
• Carey, K.B., Durney, S.E., Shepardson, R.L., Carey, M.P. (2015). Precollege Predictors of Incapacitated Rape Among Female Students in Their First Year of College . Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs; 76, 829-837.  
• U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2014). Rape and Sexual Victimization Among College-Aged Females, 1995-2013 .
• RAINN. (2016). Safety & Prevention .
• University of Michigan Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center. (2016). Drugs & Sexual Assault .
• RAINN. (2016). Staying Safe on Campus .
• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. (n.d.).  Alcohol and Sexual Assault .
• Kimble, M., Flack, W.F., Jr., Burbridge, E. (2013). Study abroad increases risk of sexual assault in female undergraduates: A preliminary report . Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy; 5: 426-430.
• Kathleen C. Basile, Ph.D., Lead Behavioral Scientist, Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Kathryn Jones, M.S.W., Public Health Advisor, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Sharon G. Smith, Ph.D., Behavioral Scientist, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) Staff
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A Closer Look At Sexual Assaults On Campus

The history of campus sexual assault.

Anya Kamenetz

"Male sex aggression on a university campus" was the title of one of the first studies published about a topic now very much in the news. Way back in 1957, sociologist Eugene Kanin posited a model where men used secrecy and stigma to pressure and exploit women.

Today student activists and the federal government are successfully raising awareness about a problem that's been around for a very long time. By most accounts, one in five female college students will be assaulted. Gender relations have changed since the 1950s and so has the law. What's still unclear is the best approach for preventing sexual misconduct on campus. For some answers, I called up one of the leading scholars who's been researching the issue for decades.

Inside the Minds of Perpetrators

Mary Koss coined the term "date rape" back in the 1980s. She's a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona and over the course of her career, she has collected the stories of thousands, on campuses and around the world.

"I had my list of 'OMG' experiences with this research," she says, particularly when gathering reports from self-described perpetrators. Among the most disturbing, of those 'OMG' findings were these two, from the only national survey of college men on the topic, published in 1987:

* 7.7 percent of male students volunteered anonymously that they had engaged in or attempted forced sex.

*Almost none considered it to be a crime.

"They would say, 'Yes, I held a woman down to have sex with her against her consent but that was definitely not rape,'" Koss says. Part of the reason that few of her respondents considered themselves sexual offenders, she said, is that they faced no negative consequences. No accusation. No shame. No punishment. Compared with when she started doing this research in the 1980s, she says, even more men in current studies, around 11 percent, admit to being perpetrators.

The exact comparable statistic for non-students is hard to find. Which raises the question of why so much of this research concerns college students. Part of it is situational: psychology researchers always find undergraduates a handy population to study. Also, traditional college campuses, Koss points out, have situational risk factors for sexual abuse: a population that is primarily made up of young single people and lots of underage drinking. She says the three "primary drivers" that enable a small minority of men to offend without consequences, are a culture of high alcohol consumption, peer pressure from other men to prove sexual prowess and men's own attitudes favoring impersonal sex.

MIT student activist Larkin Sayre (center) works a booth representing the "It's on Us" campaign in a lobby on campus. Tovia Smith/NPR hide caption

The Question of Consequences

Another key factor in understanding campus sexual assault is the response, or lack thereof, by universities. In the case of the University of Virginia a nd many others now in the news, some of the outrage seems to hinge on the appearance of institutions either discouraging or avoiding reporting sex crimes.

I asked several legal scholars why administrations don't just send victims to the police (assuming the incident is reported in the first place, which most are not. ) They explained that universities have a parallel responsibility to investigate and prevent sex crimes as a gender equality issue under Title IX.

Enlisting Smartphones In The Campaign For Campus Safety

Plus, unfortunately, the criminal justice system has major shortcomings as a venue for bringing sex offenders to justice.

As Kids Head To Campus, Parents Broach The Subject Of Sexual Assault

However, that leaves many perpetrators facing few consequences. Even when crimes are reported, says Koss, "Schools seem to have about two responses to sexual assault: One is expulsion, and two is write a paper." And expelled students are, of course, free to enroll elsewhere. Such sanctions, Koss and others note, are likely to impact neither the school environment nor the total incidence of crimes.

At the University of Arizona, Koss has implemented a different approach to enforcement, called restorative justice. This concept (which we've covered elsewhere ) gives victims a space to confront offenders, who may face consequences like counseling and community service.

Nevertheless, Koss and other researchers are, perhaps surprisingly, optimistic about the current upswell of student activism, major media attention, and especially action on the federal level. "What's happened with the president's initiative is all of a sudden it's a massive political issue, and it's getting media coverage and people are feeling free to come out and talk," she says.

What's most important, she says, is to "prioritize victim choice."

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Is There a Smarter Way to Think About Sexual Assault on Campus?

By Jia Tolentino

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If I were asked by a survey to describe my experience with sexual assault in college, I would pinpoint two incidents, both of which occurred at or after parties in my freshman year. In the first case, the guy went after me with sniper accuracy, magnanimously giving me a drink he’d poured upstairs. In the second case, I’m sure the guy had no idea that he was doing something wrong. I had joined a sorority, and all my social circles were as sloppy, intense, and tribal as the Greek system—the groups that made these incidents possible are the same ones that made my life at the time so good. In college, everything is Janus-faced: what you interpret as refuge can lead to danger, and vice versa. One of the most highly valorized social activities, blacking out and hooking up, holds the potential for trauma within it like a seed.

I got to thinking about this—and picturing my college self as a sort of avatar in an extended risk simulation—after talking with Jennifer Hirsch and Claude Ann Mellins, at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, in Washington Heights, on a biting, windy day last December. Hirsch, an anthropologist, and Mellins, a clinical psychologist, are Columbia professors. Both women are in their fifties, have shoulder-length brown hair, and grew up in Jewish families in Manhattan. They share a sharp, maternal pragmatism—between them, they have five sons, ranging in age from fifteen to twenty-three. For the past three years, they have been leading a $2.2-million research project on the sexual behavior of Columbia undergraduates. The project is called SHIFT , which stands for the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation.

The problem of campus sexual assault can seem unfathomable and intractable. We generally think of it as a matter of individual misbehavior, which, various studies have shown, most prevention programs do little to change. But Hirsch and Mellins think about sexual assault socio-ecologically: as a matter of how people act within a particular environment. They are doggedly optimistic that there is, if not a single fix, a series of new solutions.

Watch “The Backstory”: Jia Tolentino discusses reporting on campus sexual assault.

A four-year residential college is what sociologists call a total institution: it controls the conditions under which students eat, sleep, work, and party. “You can just imagine all these contextual dimensions in college that could be tinkered with to create a less stressful, less hard-drinking, more respectful environment,” Hirsch said. The assumption is that some college students are committing sexual assault when they don’t intend to, and that many are more vulnerable to sexual harm than they ought to be. Either idea can be controversial, and focussing on contributing factors, such as drinking, rather than just on the bad acts of perpetrators, can seem beside the point. But Hirsch and Mellins insist that their approach to prevention does not ignore personal responsibility; rather, it aims to nudge students toward responsible behavior on a collective scale. The first time we met, on Columbia’s main campus, Hirsch put it to me more plainly: “We have to stop working one penis at a time!”

SHIFT was born out of a crisis. In the past several years, as students all over the country became more vocal about the problem of rape in college, the press seized on a series of dramatic incidents, including one at Columbia. A rare combination of academic talent and initiative was then unleashed by the university, which may have felt the need to demonstrate its commitment to the cause, and this produced, after two years of sunup-to-sundown effort, the most rigorous, nuanced, and wide-ranging examination of the problem that has ever been carried out on a college campus. “It’s better for universities if sexual assault is positioned as a matter of sexual health, rather than as a scary threat,” the journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis, who published a book last year, “Blurred Lines,” about sexual assault on campus, told me. She added, “We’re in a new phase of the movement.”

You can trace that movement back at least four decades, to 1977, when a senior at Yale named Ann Olivarius—along with another student, three graduates, and a male professor—sued the school, citing quid-pro-quo sexual harassment by professors, a hostile environment, and a lack of reporting procedures. The plaintiffs, advised by a recent Yale Law graduate named Catharine MacKinnon, argued that this was a violation of Title IX—the federal statute, passed five years before, that prohibits gender discrimination in educational institutions. The women lost the case, but the district court ruled that it was “perfectly reasonable to maintain that academic advancement conditioned upon submission to sexual demands constitutes sex discrimination in education.” Two years later, MacKinnon published her landmark book, “Sexual Harassment of Working Women,” which argued that “economic power is to sexual harassment as physical force is to rape.”

The proper scope of Title IX was argued in court over and over in the years that followed; rulings narrowed its application, then expanded it again. Meanwhile, anti-rape activism progressed on campuses across the country. Take Back the Night marches, which had begun in the seventies, became a feature of college life in the eighties; Columbia’s first Take Back the Night march was held, in front of the Barnard gates, in 1988. The Columbia University Senate passed the first school-wide sexual-assault policy in 1995—it required that complaints be handled through an alternative form of the school’s standard disciplinary procedure. Student activists weren’t satisfied: they wanted the deans who handled sexual-assault cases to receive additional training, and they wanted to know how many incidents were being reported. They staged a prolonged campaign that culminated, in 1999, in a twenty-three-hour vigil, during which hundreds of students marched through campus shouting, “Red tape can’t cover up rape!”

Seven years ago, the Office of Civil Rights, under President Obama, issued a “Dear Colleague” letter, reasserting that sexual violence on campus was a violation of Title IX, and pushing universities to handle sexual-assault cases in a timely, transparent, accuser-friendly manner. A year later, the Department of Justice expanded its definition of rape to include male victims and multiple types of violations. (The previous definition—“the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will”—had been in place since 1927.) Today, the D.O.J. defines sexual assault as unwanted sexual contact, which means that groping counts, as does attempted assault. The crime hinges on intention, and there are often no witnesses, which makes it uniquely difficult to adjudicate in any legal system, let alone one made up of college administrators. Campus judiciary systems don’t have a criminal court’s investigative powers or evidentiary procedures, but they do have many of a criminal court’s responsibilities. To complicate matters further, everyone involved in the process—accuser, accused, administrator—essentially works under the same roof. Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Secretary of Education, has called the current approach a “failed system,” and said that she would seek to replace it.

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It might seem simpler to let the criminal-justice system handle things, but universities have a responsibility to insure that women have equal access to education. And, in addition, many students prefer to address these matters outside that system—they don’t necessarily want to send their assaulters to prison, and they may not be able to prove their cases beyond a reasonable doubt. Columbia now has twenty-three staffers with Title IX responsibilities, including case managers, investigators, and administrators, and provides free legal services to accusers and accused. The school’s gender-based misconduct policy is thirty-one pages long.

Freshman year at Columbia, as at any college, can be overwhelming: awkward encounters at parties in the “social dorm,” where the long wooden doors can be taken down to serve as beer-pong tables; a rush to find a home base in extracurriculars and clubs. Juliana Kaplan, a Barnard junior, told me, “On the one hand, you have kids at Columbia who come from kings of Wall Street—you have a secret society based completely on wealth. On the other, you have a demographic of first-generation, low-income students of color. People come in through very different contexts.” When I asked her about the tenor of student conversation on sexual assault, she told me, “I try to remember that some people have been super aware of these issues for their whole life, due to any number of factors, and then there are some people, such as men, who have to actively learn about it while they’re here.”

Five years ago, a Columbia sophomore named Emma Sulkowicz filed a complaint with the university, accusing another student of rape. (Sulkowicz, who has been working as an artist since graduation, identifies as non-binary, and uses the gender-neutral pronouns “they” and “them.”) A consensual encounter on the first day of the school year had turned violent, Sulkowicz alleged: in the midst of sex, the student anally penetrated and choked them while they struggled and told him to stop. (He has consistently maintained that the entire encounter was consensual.) Sulkowicz decided to report the incident after another student said that she’d had a similar experience with the same man. Columbia held a series of hearings and found the man “not responsible,” and Sulkowicz was subsequently denied an appeal. The following April, twenty-three students and alumni, each with a story of assault, filed a hundred-page federal complaint against the university. Student activists formed a group called No Red Tape, evoking the protests of the nineties. When the fall semester began, Sulkowicz, an art major, started carrying a fifty-pound, twin XL mattress around campus. It was a performance project: they would stop carrying it, they said, when the student who had raped them was expelled. (Sulkowicz carried it until graduation; the man they accused later sued Columbia, arguing that the university’s support of the project, for which Sulkowicz had received academic credit, constituted gender discrimination, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The university settled with him out of court.) Soon after Sulkowicz began carrying the mattress, dozens of other Columbia students brought mattresses to the steps of Low Library and told their own stories of sexual assault.

It was around this time that Jennifer Hirsch attended a meeting of Columbia’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Council, where faculty members gathered in a conference room and picked over a catered breakfast. She sat next to Suzanne Goldberg, who at the time was a special adviser to Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, on the subject of sexual-assault prevention and response. The debates concerning rape on campus and what to do about it have been waged primarily between students and administrators, with professors off to the side. Hirsch had become frustrated by the focus, in those debates, on adjudication and punishment, rather than on the ways in which the environment of college makes students vulnerable. As the meeting ended, and people began collecting their things, Hirsch turned to Goldberg and spontaneously proposed conducting an ethnography: she would interview students, learn the everyday context of their sex lives, document the stories that the university couldn’t see. Goldberg said that sounded terrific, and told Hirsch to write up a few pages pitching the project.

A couple of weeks later, Hirsch popped into Mellins’s office, two floors down from hers in the Mailman building. The two professors have been friends since 2005, when Hirsch, who teaches in the sociomedical-sciences department, began doing work at the H.I.V. center at Columbia, which Mellins co-directs. Hirsch handed Mellins the paper she’d drafted, and began peppering her with questions. Mellins was the lead author of a 2011 study into the mental health, drug use, and sexual behavior of adolescents who had been infected with H.I.V. in the womb or as infants. She knew something about discussing uncomfortable matters with young people, and quantifying those conversations for research purposes. She answered Hirsch’s questions, and started asking her own.

Hirsch looked at her closely. “Do you want to do this with me?” she asked.

They spent the next few weeks brainstorming—on the phone, over e-mail, in each other’s offices, on whiteboards. They thought about the relevant expertise of their colleagues. Who really knew about interpersonal violence? Who really knew about epidemiology? Statistics? Trauma in young adults? As the fall turned crisp, they tracked down the faculty members whose help they wanted, and asked them if they would join SHIFT . In November, 2014, they submitted their proposal, and Goldberg quickly secured the university’s approval.

Goldberg, who is in her mid-fifties and speaks with a flat, equanimous affect, became Columbia’s first executive vice-president for university life in 2015. She has a long career of progressive advocacy—she was a co-counsel for the defendants in Lawrence v. Texas, which nullified Texas’s sodomy law. She leads Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, and she was integral to the development of SHIFT . (“We had many breakfasts,” Hirsch explained.) But she has become a maligned figure among student activists. Amelia Roskin-Frazee, a senior involved with No Red Tape, spoke to me dismissively about the Sexual Respect Initiative, a consent-education requirement, instituted by Goldberg in 2014, that included an arts option: students could write a poem, submit a drawing, or perform a dance. When I asked Goldberg about this criticism, she said, “The initiative meets students where they are.”

Roskin-Frazee is a queer activist who, at fourteen, founded a nonprofit that provides schools and shelters with L.G.B.T.Q.-themed books. She is currently suing Columbia. She says that, two months after arriving on campus, she was violently raped in her dorm room by a stranger, and that, a few months later, she was raped again, by an assailant she suspects to be the same person. (She told me more than once that she knew this was not a typical campus assault; last year, she wrote a piece for HuffPost criticizing the notion that “true stranger rapes” are any more serious than those committed by people who know their victims.) She asked to move out of her dorm room, and alleges that Columbia violated Title IX by requiring her to do so within twenty-four hours, and telling her it would cost five hundred dollars. Columbia has moved to dismiss Roskin-Frazee’s lawsuit, arguing that she obstructed her own investigation by waiting months to file an official report. In October of last year, with a group of protesters, Roskin-Frazee barged into one of Goldberg’s law classes to publicly accuse her of endangering student survivors.

The creation of SHIFT was announced to the university at the end of February, 2015, in an e-mail from President Bollinger. Hirsch and Mellins began soliciting applications for a paid undergraduate advisory board, ultimately selecting a dozen or so students, including members of the Greek system, student-government leaders, a ballerina in Columbia’s General Studies program, anti-sexual-assault activists, a sex educator, a Barnard student, and an R.A. For the next two years, when school was in session, the group met over bagels at 8 A . M . every Monday. The board created a typology of Columbia students—the hyper-involved, the completely disinterested, the kids who find their thing and stick to it—and corrected the researchers in their sometimes fumbling attempts to classify student identities. (Each time they pointed out such a mistake, one student-board member told me, the researchers’ eyes would pop in surprise, and then they’d come back the next week saying, “We had seventeen meetings since the last time we saw you, and we’re going to do what you say.”) The students planned promotional events, setting up SHIFT tables outside the dining hall and the gym. They brought the researchers, who answered questions for students, and made sure they always had snacks. “Snacks, we learned, were a really big thing,” Hirsch said.

Meanwhile, Hirsch and the Columbia sociologist Shamus Khan prepared a team of ethnographers—current and recent grad students, who were close to their subjects in age—to talk with undergraduates about intimate subjects. These interviews would be the first big component of SHIFT ’s information-gathering. The ethnographers began, that fall, with “participant observation”—i.e., hanging around football games and drinking club soda at student bars. Shortly afterward, a story appeared in the student newspaper the Daily Spectator , in which an unnamed sophomore said that Khan had been spotted taking notes at 1020, a popular bar near campus. (The plans for the ethnographic research had been announced in the Daily Spectator months before.) The story was picked up by the Post , which reported that “Columbia University researchers are spying on the school’s students at bars and campus parties as part of a new study about sexual health and violence—and the students say it’s creeping them out.”

In fact, by all accounts, the process went pretty smoothly. Some students, after talking to the researchers for a while, invited them to parties, or to kick it in dorm rooms. Many university employees are required to report sexual assault to the Title IX coördinator, but the researchers received a waiver so that they could promise students confidentiality while engaged in SHIFT research. Alexander Wamboldt, an affable, bearded Princeton Ph.D. who worked as a SHIFT ethnographer, told me that it was important, in these encounters, to “model good, consensual research behavior”—he announced his name and his purpose, along with a disclaimer about confidentiality, before entering a conversation. He and the other researchers conducted one-on-one interviews with a hundred and fifty-one students about their sex lives and their experiences at Columbia. (Students were paid for the time they spent in these interviews.) Hirsch and Khan sorted through the data and adjusted their approach when they weren’t getting all the information they needed. Wamboldt was hired to focus on so-called high-status men, such as those involved in athletics and fraternities, a group of students who hadn’t, up to that point, spoken much with the ethnographers, perhaps wary of the possibility that they’d be portrayed badly in whatever the researchers wrote up.

The interviews were bracing. Talking about sex brings a lot to the surface—students discussed loss, family, trauma, hardship, fear. Some of the men Wamboldt spoke to cracked offhand jokes about having been raped. The members of the ethnography team soon decided that they needed to do a mental-health check-in at their weekly meetings: they would go around the room, and everyone would relate how he or she was coping with the work.

In one advisory-board meeting, Mellins and Hirsch shared preliminary observations, and Mellins brought up affirmative consent—the practice of actively, mutually soliciting enthusiasm throughout a sexual encounter, which is now the legal standard for universities in New York and California. Most college students learn about it in orientation seminars or from online modules that they are required to complete. Mellins told the administrators that affirmative consent rarely factored into the experiences that students were describing.

“One of our institutional advisers pretty much fell off her chair,” Mellins told me. “She said, ‘How can it not be a thing? We’re working so hard to teach them.’ And our point was: there’s a really broad disjuncture between what students learn and what they actually practice.” The researchers found that the practice is much simpler to understand than its detractors, who tend to picture a stack of paperwork accompanying every make-out session, seem to think—and also less common than its proponents would like to believe. ( SHIFT plans to publish a paper on affirmative consent later this year.)

Hirsch and Mellins launched the second phase of the study, an enormous daily-diary project, in October. Four hundred and twelve students were asked to fill out a short online questionnaire every day for sixty days. (The student board convinced the researchers that the only way to maintain subject participation through midterms was to pay: diarists got a dollar an entry.) The idea was that researchers would be able to quickly scan each twenty-four-hour period for mood, sleep, sexual activity, substance use, and unusual experiences. The pool of data could then be parsed for patterns and fine-grained interactions. Researchers might find, for example, that unwanted sexual contact is more likely to occur in the midst of other crises, or after a person has experienced unwanted sexual attention in another setting.

In January, 2016, the SHIFT team recruited students for Part 3: a sweeping, onetime survey. The student board roped in peers with the promise of gift cards, and by talking to them about how important the project was, how it could show that Columbia took sexual assault more seriously than other universities, and how, if they participated, they’d get snacks. (Students who took the survey in SHIFT ’s temporary office got fruit, candy, pizza, and chips.)

The survey contains hundreds of questions, many of them startlingly intimate. It seems likely that no previous survey has so accurately reflected how sexual assault actually occurs in college—as an event embedded within the fabric of everyday life, which both perpetrator and victim understand based on their background, their habits, their state of mind. The survey asks students about sleep, exercise, eating habits, mental health, where they get alcohol, what sort of dorm room they live in, where they party and how. It asks about money, family, friends, their sexual experiences before college, their sense of agency and of self-worth. It asks about gender identity and attraction, about the moments just before an incident—who was around, what was happening—and what followed, immediately and in the long term. It asks about consent: if students expect their partners to ask, if they think it’s a matter of body language, if they think that asking once at the beginning of a hookup is fine. It asks about attitudes regarding sex and gender, sussing out common cultural biases: To what degree do they think that women lie to get ahead? Do they think that men should reveal vulnerability? Do they believe that it can’t be rape if both people are drunk? Are they not at all sure, a little sure, somewhat sure, pretty sure, or very sure that they could say no to having sex with someone if they want to date that person? What if they want the person to fall in love with them, or if the person won’t use a condom? What if they’ve had sex with the person before?

Twenty-five hundred Columbia and Barnard undergraduates were invited to participate in SHIFT ’s survey, and sixty-seven per cent of them did so. I took the survey myself one day at the end of December—answering in the present, as a twenty-nine-year-old, and thinking about how I would have answered at eighteen. In the course of a half hour, I felt nauseated, and then oddly comforted, by how well the questions were outlining my life. A detailed constellation emerged of all the things that had protected me in college: a chemically stable disposition, satisfying relationships, a sense of control over my experience at school, a lack of confusion about what I wanted sex to be. My vulnerabilities—a certain recklessness, a freshman-year social life that depended on spaces and substances provided by men—were just as clear. I could see the desires and the habits, sexual and otherwise, that traced the path between then and now. I started to wonder if the research that SHIFT is producing might start closing the gap between two seemingly contradictory realities. Sexual assault on campus is frequently portrayed as lurid and dark and complex. But the experiences that live in our heads are often obvious and ordinary, sometimes heartbreakingly so. SHIFT is, in a sense, a reporting project of unprecedented scale, a map that genuinely reflects the size of the territory. It could be one of the first endeavors to show the magnitude and the texture of the problem at the same time.

S HIFT ’s research concluded in the fall of 2017. Since then, the team has been analyzing the data and preparing to publish a slew of papers about the results in peer-reviewed journals. (In December, Hirsch and Khan sold a book about SHIFT , tentatively titled “The Sexual Project,” to Norton, to be published in 2019.) The first paper, which appeared in the open-access online journal PLOS ONE in November, laid out what the team learned about the frequency of sexual assault at Columbia. Sexual-assault research is notoriously contested and spotty—many regularly cited statistics come from studies with big design flaws, such as small sample sizes, or loose definitions of “college student.” The record-setting response rate for the SHIFT survey makes its data unusually comprehensive and reliable. In certain important respects, its numbers are in keeping with previous findings: a little more than one in five respondents said they had experienced sexual assault since starting college—twenty-eight per cent of women, twelve per cent of men, and nearly forty per cent of gender-nonconforming students. (The survey did not use the term “sexual assault”; it asked about “unwanted sexual contact.”) But there were also surprises. It’s long been established that women and L.G.B.T.Q. students are especially vulnerable to assault; SHIFT found that students who are struggling to pay for basic necessities are, too. Men in fraternities are, in fact, more likely than other male students to be perpetrators; SHIFT found that they were more likely than other men to be victims as well. A culture that doesn’t teach men to ask for consent often doesn’t teach them that they can withhold it, either.

Hirsch and Mellins avoid the term “rape culture” when discussing their work. I’ve never liked that phrase, not because it doesn’t name something real but because it emphasizes the way that the world is already prepared to hurt me, rather than emphasizing my personal, and not entirely predictable, relationship to the world. (As Jennifer Doyle, an English professor at the University of California, Riverside, puts it in her book “Campus Sex, Campus Security,” the term distances sexual violence from “the force of the ordinary.”) Hirsch and Mellins often talk about “sexual citizenship,” which they define as a “person’s understanding of his or her right, and other people’s equivalent right, to sexual self-determination.” In the conference room at the Mailman building, Hirsch told me, “Part of what I see our work doing is disrupting these scripts that women give consent and men secure it—that men are sexual agents and women are gatekeepers, which is affirmed by consent education that frames men exclusively as potential perpetrators.”

“Of course, you don’t want to minimize the fact that women are still holding the burden on this, in terms of absolute numbers,” Mellins said. She hesitated. “But you want to work in a way where there isn’t a single story.” A trans student who is assaulted at a party is experiencing something different from a freshman girl whose hookup is ignoring her protests in a dorm room. Both of them are experiencing something different from a boy who has never imagined that he would ever give or receive a no. Mellins pointed to an article about a Brown University student who’d been assaulted in a bathroom by another man, and then, later that day, attended a standard prevention workshop, where he felt entirely alone. “If you don’t give someone permission to be at risk, then they can’t seek help,” Mellins said.

The researchers discussed their findings with the student board—they’re all still in a group chat together—and also with administrators. Certain fixes, they’ve realized, are impossible to implement. All college students would benefit from drinking alcohol in a gentler manner: often with food, rarely in basements. But colleges can’t encourage that among underage students without breaking federal law. When I was talking with Hirsch and Mellins, I thought about my own experience with the Greek system. The National Panhellenic Conference, which adheres to rather antiquated gender norms, forbids sororities from holding parties where alcohol is served, which means that, at many schools, the most accessible parties for freshmen take place on fraternity terms, and on fraternity turf.

Every school’s environment is different—where students drink, how they get home from parties, the geographies and the conditions of their vulnerability—and the nudges and interventions have to vary accordingly. But Hirsch and Mellins hope that their research can serve as the beginning of a network of innovative cross-campus studies. In the meantime, they’re talking to administrators about the interrelationship of mental health, substance abuse, and sexual assault, and about how different types of incidents and different types of students require different types of prevention and response. Many of these conversations have echoed long-standing conclusions in public-health research, and also what some students are already asking for: more crisis support, more consideration for specific populations, more access to spaces on campus that feel like their own. “I’m grateful the SHIFT team chose to do this,” Roskin-Frazee told me. “I hope they are persuasive to administrators who are not easily persuaded.”

One night in January, I called Emma Sulkowicz to talk about Hirsch and Mellins’s project. Sulkowicz was disarming and philosophical, despite having spent five hours in the dentist’s chair earlier that day. Sulkowicz had not heard about SHIFT before, and was politely resistant to the idea: “My view in this whole thing is that, the more that Columbia can retreat behind ‘Here’s a program, here’s a study, here’s a process,’ the less that any human that finds themselves in this machine will ever be incentivized to act based on their moral compass.”

What if, I asked, the idea behind the study was tinkering with the machine, figuring out how to reorient that moral compass?

“That makes me think of asking someone to wash the dishes, and they tell you, ‘I’ll try,’ ” Sulkowicz said. “I think that’s the difference between spending two million dollars to try to understand the conditions that create a community that’s conducive to sexual assault versus just doing the right thing—expelling people who sexually assault other students.”

Sulkowicz wants to change behavior, too, but thinks that punishment is more efficacious than tweaks to campus life. When Columbia settled the lawsuit filed by the man Sulkowicz accused of rape, it put out a statement, noting that his “remaining time at Columbia became very difficult for him and not what Columbia would want any of its students to experience.” But Sulkowicz believes that what he went through had a salutary effect. “He’s been scared shitless,” they said. (The man’s lawyer called this statement “preposterous,” and said that he had done nothing wrong.)

Sulkowicz also said something that I kept hearing from Columbia students: “It’s about finding a way to make your institution, and the people who run it, more human.” Earlier that week, I’d spoken to a former SHIFT student-board member named Morgan Hughes, a laid-back twenty-three-year-old hip-hop musician. She called me from a coffee shop in Cleveland, where she’d moved after graduation. She had been a disengaged student, by her own account, mainly focussed on her music. Her friends at school, most of whom were people of color, had found it difficult to secure space and permission from Columbia to hold their own events, she told me. “Everything is so regulated, so limited, everything’s super uptight,” she said. “Columbia always says they’re listening, taking students into account, and then they turn around and make a decision that doesn’t acknowledge any of that conversation. But SHIFT did listen. They changed their agenda based on what we talked about. It didn’t feel like we were just wasting our breath.”

Would SHIFT make things different at Columbia? “Every four years, there’s a new student body, and I think Columbia is used to just waiting it out,” she said. “But this time there are professors involved. Shamus Khan is going to be there, Jennifer Hirsch is going to be there. It’s up to Columbia if they want to shoot themselves in the foot and ignore it, but people are actually paying attention to this.” She paused, and coffee-shop noises tinkled in the background. “I mean, Columbia, you should want to solve the problem, so you don’t keep having to solve the problem , you know what I mean?”

The question now is whether Columbia values SHIFT as a flagship research project or as a practical guide to institutional change. I asked Goldberg, over the phone, whether she thought Columbia would change after SHIFT . She had spoken carefully throughout our conversation, seeming to calibrate every word against the various, sometimes competing interests that she’s expected to balance. “I think,” she said, “that SHIFT ’s research is profoundly important to the work we are doing here.” It will be difficult, under Title IX, for people who live or work on campus to entirely separate sex from bureaucracy. When I asked Mellins what she hopes to ultimately accomplish with SHIFT , she said, “I’m a clinician. I’ve come to feel that, if the work we do makes the lives of even a small amount of students better, that’s what we want. We want to eradicate sexual assault, but, short of that, I think we just want to make a difference.”

The SHIFT approach, for all its rigor and scope, is in some ways remarkably modest: the idea is that small structural adjustments to student life could change how students interact with one another—help them find their moral compass more easily, feel more at home on campus, have some obstacles cleared out of their path. These humble expectations can seem deflating. But SHIFT makes a powerful argument that sexual-violence prevention must embrace the ordinary and the particular. Its programming suggestions may matter less than its potential to transform how people think about the problem. At one point in my conversation with Hirsch, she brought up an optimistic analogy. Forty years ago, alcohol played a role in more than sixty per cent of traffic deaths. Since then, a comprehensive, multilevel campaign against drunk driving has cut that number in half. This required institutional change, in the form of new laws, and social change, as school and community programs taught people to designate a driver and to intervene when a wobbly friend grabbed his car keys. It also involved changes to the physical environment: cities established police checkpoints, and offenders were required to install Breathalyzer locks on their cars. Citizens lobbied for better street lights, more speed bumps.

A version of this thinking applies to life in college: there are checkpoints and speed bumps that could decrease the likelihood of harm. Picture the freshman who’s depressed but doesn’t realize it, or can’t get an appointment at the counselling office, or doesn’t trust the counsellors. It’s easier to just drink twenty beers each weekend. On one of those weekends, he goes to a party and meets a girl who hasn’t slept in two days and is subsisting on cereal; she didn’t want to come to this party, but her roommates gave her an iced-tea bottle full of Fireball and dragged her out. The boy and the girl start talking. Their friends cheer when they make out. At 2 A.M. , when the party begins to clear, one of them says they should get a bite, but no place on campus is open. They go to her bedroom, but there’s nowhere comfortable to sit except the bed. What happens next is a blur of mismatched fears and assumptions. The girl panics, freezes, thinks the guy will hurt her if she yells at him, starts making horrible calculations of futility: anyone who hears this story will think it’s her fault for inviting him in. The guy, having half-deliberately drunk himself beyond conscious decision-making, ignores her stiffness and whatever she’s mumbling; he thinks he’s doing exactly what college students are supposed to do. There are at least a dozen small changes beyond their control that might have led to a different outcome. There will always be people, mostly men, who experience a power differential as license to do what they want. But SHIFT proposes that it is possible to protect potential victims and potential perpetrators simultaneously, and that we are, at this moment, less eager to hurt one another than we seem to be. ♦

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By Jeannie Suk Gersen

By Joan Didion

Staying Safe on Campus

College campuses can give you a sense of security—a feeling that everyone knows each other and watches out for one another. There are perpetrators who take advantage of this feeling of safety and security to commit acts of sexual violence.

We can all take steps to increase safety on college campuses. As bystanders , students can learn ways of stepping in to prevent crimes like sexual assault from occurring. When it comes to personal safety, there are steps you can take as well, and some of those tips are outlined below. No tips can absolutely guarantee safety—sexual violence can happen to anyone, and it’s not the only crime that can occur on a college campus. It’s important to remember that if you are sexually assaulted on campus it is not your fault—help and support are available.

Increasing on-campus safety

The following tips may reduce your risk for many different types of crimes, including sexual violence.

• Know your resources. Who should you contact if you or a friend needs help? Where should you go? Locate resources such as the campus health center, campus police station, and a local sexual assault service provider. Notice where emergency phones are located on campus, and program the campus security number into your cell phone for easy access.
• Stay alert. When you’re moving around on campus or in the surrounding neighborhood, be aware of your surroundings. Consider inviting a friend to join you or asking campus security for an escort. If you’re alone, only use headphones in one ear to stay aware of your surroundings.
• Be careful about posting your location . Many social media sites, like Facebook and Foursquare, use geolocation to publicly share your location. Consider disabling this function and reviewing other social media settings .
• Make others earn your trust. A college environment can foster a false sense of security. They may feel like fast friends, but give people time to earn your trust before relying on them.
• Think about Plan B . Spend some time thinking about back-up plans for potentially sticky situations. If your phone dies, do you have a few numbers memorized to get help? Do you have emergency cash in case you can’t use a credit card? Do you have the address to your dorm or college memorized? If you drive, is there a spare key hidden, gas in your car, and a set of jumper cables?
• Be secure. Lock your door and windows when you’re asleep and when you leave the room. If people constantly prop open the main door to the dorm or apartment, tell security or a trusted authority figure.

Safety in social settings

It’s possible to relax and have a good time while still making safety a priority. Consider these tips for staying safe and looking out for your friends in social settings.

• Make a plan . If you’re going to a party, go with people you trust. Agree to watch out for each other and plan to leave together. If your plans change, make sure to touch base with the other people in your group. Don’t leave someone stranded in an unfamiliar or unsafe situation.
• Protect your drink. Don’t leave your drink unattended, and watch out for your friends’ drinks if you can. If you go to the bathroom or step outside, take the drink with you or toss it out. Drink from unopened containers or drinks you watched being made and poured. It’s not always possible to know if something has been added to someone’s drink. In drug-facilitated sexual assault , a perpetrator could use a substance that has no color, taste, or odor.
• Know your limits. Keep track of how many drinks you’ve had, and be aware of your friends’ behavior. If one of you feels extremely tired or more drunk than you should, you may have been drugged. Leave the party or situation and find help immediately.
• It’s okay to lie. If you want to exit a situation immediately and are concerned about frightening or upsetting someone, it’s okay to lie. You are never obligated to remain in a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable, pressured , or threatened. You can also lie to help a friend leave a situation that you think may be dangerous. Some excuses you could use are needing to take care of another friend or family member, an urgent phone call, not feeling well, and having to be somewhere else by a certain time.
• Be a good friend. Trust your instincts. If you notice something that doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Learn more about how to keep your friends safe in social settings.

Feeling safe after an assault

If you have experienced sexual assault, there are steps you can take to feel safer.

• Make use of on-campus resources. Colleges often provide a host of services to students for free, including security escorts, health centers, psychological services, and sexual assault services.
• Request a schedule or housing change. If you have classes with the perpetrator or live in the same building, you can request a change from your college administration. Federal laws, such as the Campus SaVE Act , require colleges to honor these requests.
• Access off-campus support services . If you are concerned about anonymity, you can seek out resources located off campus in the community, like a local sexual assault service provider or domestic violence shelter.
• Seek a civil protection order (CPO). A CPO, sometimes also referred to as a temporary restraining order (TPO), is a legal document that bars an individual from certain types of contact with the person who is awarded the order. An individual who violates the terms of the restraining order can face criminal charges. Each state has its own rules and regulations for Sexual Assault CPOs that you can learn more about through the American Bar Association .
• Create a safety plan . If you are concerned for your ongoing safety, it can be worthwhile to create a safety plan. Safety planning is about finding ways to be safe in the present while planning for your future safety as well.

Additional resources for students

• Learn ways to get involved on your campus and share important information about sexual violence.
• The laws about consent vary by state and situation. It can make the topic confusing, but you don’t have to be a legal expert to understand how consent plays out in real life .
• Learn about ways to protect your friends and take steps to prevent sexual assault .
• If you're planning a trip—or semester—abroad, be sure to think about safety as part of your travel preparations .
• Did you experience sexual violence while studying abroad? Watch this video to learn more about help when you return home.

To speak with someone who is trained to help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or chat online at  online.rainn.org .

Eight out of 10 sexual assaults are committed by someone who knows the victim.

Your next birthday can help survivors of sexual violence..

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How Prevalent Is Campus Sexual Assault in the United States?

Sexual assault on college campuses continues to make national headlines. We know the victims suffer short- and long-term health problems, such as sexually transmitted infections, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, chronic illness and post-traumatic stress disorder. We also know that college students who have been sexually assaulted are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as binge drinking and drug use, and have lowered academic achievement, and they may be at greater risk for revictimization.

A number of government and campus initiatives aim to address the problem. For instance, in September 2014, the White House partnered with stakeholders to launch "It's On Us" and "Not Alone," national public awareness campaigns focusing on preventing and responding to campus sexual assault.

But to truly tackle sexual assault on college campuses, we must understand how often it occurs. How many college students are sexually assaulted, and what factors are associated with higher or lower prevalence rates?

Official estimates vary widely. To date, no studies have systematically reviewed prevalence findings in the research on college-based sexual victimization, which would provide greater insight into the extent of the problem, the types of sexual victimization that students experience, and how study methodologies influence the prevalence rates found.

To help fill this knowledge gap, we systematically gathered prevalence estimates for campus sexual assault in the U.S. that were published between January 2000 and February 2015. We defined "prevalence" as the reported percentage of study participants who reported sexual victimization since entering college or during a study follow-up period or time frame while attending college.

Learn about the definitions used in our review.

We examined peer-reviewed studies, dissertations and reports on a wide range of topics, such as health outcomes, risk factors, and evaluations of campus intervention or prevention programs. We assessed and synthesized prevalence findings, research designs and methods, sampling techniques, and measures, including types of sexual victimization.

Our goal was to better understand the range of prevalence findings currently available and the factors behind the variation. We also wanted to present recommendations for campus prevention and response strategies and propose research questions for future studies on campus sexual assault.

An Incomplete Picture

We found that estimates of completed forcible rape, incapacitated rape, unwanted sexual contact and sexual coercion on college campuses in the U.S. vary widely. Unwanted sexual contact and sexual coercion appear to be most prevalent, followed by incapacitated rape and attempted or completed forcible rape.

The variability is due in large part to differences in measurement and definitions of sexual assault among studies. To date, the majority of research on campus sexual assault has been limited to white, heterosexual, female students attending four-year colleges. Few studies measure prevalence among racial and ethnic minority students or other students who may be particularly at risk for campus sexual assault, such as lesbian and bisexual women, sorority women, students with disabilities, and students who have suffered prior victimization. Some studies included in our review found higher rates of sexual assault among these students.

Only one study sampled students at vocational and trade schools, so it is unclear whether the prevalence of sexual assault among nontraditional college students differs from that among traditional full-time students attending four-year colleges.

Despite the discrepancies, the studies we reviewed — even those with lower estimates — all point to the same troubling truth: A substantial proportion of college students are sexually assaulted.

Recommendations

Students experience different forms of sexual victimization, and prevalence rates for each form often vary from campus to campus. Schools should start with a detailed understanding of the types of sexual victimization occurring on their campuses and appropriately tailor prevention and intervention strategies, treatment for victims, and campus response.

We found a high prevalence of unwanted sexual contact and sexual coercion; therefore, prevention efforts should include a focus on the dynamics of these two forms of victimization. Further, the disproportionate rates of victimization among LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning) students, students with disabilities, and racial and ethnic minority students highlight the need for responses that are inclusive and culturally specific.

When researching campus sexual assault, it is important to clearly define and separately measure the range of experiences that may fall under "unwanted sexual contact," "forcible rape," "incapacitated rape" and "drug- or alcohol-facilitated rape." Standardized definitions can help us better understand how prevalence rates vary and how to develop appropriate prevention and intervention strategies for various types of sexual victimization. Studies should continue to include behaviorally specific measures, such as providing students with examples of unwanted sexual experiences. Also, measuring victimization "since entering college" will help distinguish campus sexual assault from childhood, adolescent and lifetime sexual victimization.

Future studies should measure sexual victimization among students who may be at greater risk for sexual assault, such as LGBTQ students, students with past histories of sexual victimization and students with disabilities. Future research should also explore whether sexual assault among students at alternative college education programs is similar to or different from sexual assault among traditional college students; this will help nontraditional programs develop appropriate intervention and prevention responses for students. Additionally, researchers should consider contextual and cultural differences between public and private universities — for example, small liberal arts colleges versus large public state universities — as well as four-year colleges and vocational or trade schools when measuring the prevalence of sexual victimization on different types of campuses.

Defining Sexual Assault

We used the following definitions in our review of sexual assault on U.S. campuses:

• Prevalence: the reported percentage of study participants who reported sexual victimization since entering college or during a study follow-up period or time frame while attending college
• Unwanted sexual contact: attempted or completed unwanted kissing, fondling, petting or other sexual touching using physical force, threat of physical force, verbal coercion or a combination of these, but excluding vaginal, anal and oral intercourse
• Sexual coercion: completed unwanted sexual contact (kissing, fondling or other sexual touching) or completed vaginal, anal or oral intercourse through nonviolent means (such as intimidation, pressure, lies, threats to end a relationship or continual arguments)
• Incapacitated or alcohol-related sexual assault: completed vaginal, anal or oral intercourse while victim was intoxicated or on drugs
• Broadly defined sexual assault: involving multiple forms of sexual victimization, including rape, sexual coercion, incapacitated or alcohol-related sexual assault, and unwanted sexual contact
• Physically forced completed and attempted rape: vaginal, anal or oral intercourse using physical force or threat of force

Return to text .

For More Information

For a detailed discussion of our review and findings, see " Campus Sexual Assault: A Systematic Review of Prevalence Research from 2000 to 2015 ," in Trauma, Violence & Abuse.

Learn more about NIJ's research on campus sexual assault.

About This Article

This artice appeared in NIJ Journal Issue 277 , September 2016.

About the author

Lisa Fedina is a graduate research assistant at NIJ and a Ph.D. student in the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Jennifer Lynne Holmes is a graduate research assistant at NIJ and a Ph.D. student in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University. Bethany Backes is a social science analyst in NIJ's Office of Research and Evaluation, where she directs NIJ's program of research on violence against women.

Cite this Article

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An Underreported Problem: Campus Sexual Misconduct

The Problem with Reporting

Though many women experience harassment and assault on campus, they are often reluctant to notify officials because they worry they won’t be believed or might face retaliation. As a result, official reports vastly understate its occurrence. 

Harassment and assault can cause long-lasting physical and psychological damage, hindering survivors from learning or continuing to attend their institutions. In the #MeToo era, reports have increased slightly at some schools. Yet many schools continue to make it difficult for students to come forward, and a majority fail to properly report incidents of sexual harassment and violence when they occur.

Yet in 2017, the U.S. Department of Education rescinded a number of sexual harassment protections under Title IX . AAUW regularly examines how schools and colleges report information about sexual harassment and violence. Every public school that receives federal funding and colleges and universities that participate in federal financial aid programs are required to report this information.

Our analysis found that a vast majority of these institutions do not disclose any reported incidents. Contributing factors can include: individual student fears of reporting to school authorities or law enforcement; procedural gaps in how institutions record or respond to incidents; a reluctance on the part of institutions to be associated with these programs; or a combination of factors. Regardless of the reasons, educational institutions have a legal responsibility to accurately monitor, disclose and respond to sexual harassment and assault.

• Despite numerous studies showing that rape is common on campuses, 89% of colleges and universities reported zero incidents of rape. AAUW’s analysis of 2016 data reported under the federal Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act), which requires colleges and universities who participate in federal financial aid programs to disclose campus crime statistics and security information , shows that the vast majority (89%) of 11,000 college and university campuses failed to disclose even a single reported incident of rape that year, even though there are  numerous studies showing that campus rape is common.
• The AAUW analysis also found low rates overall of reports of sexual assault, including rape and fondling, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking. Altogether, 77% of campuses reported zero incidents of sexual assault, including rape and fondling, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking — a shocking statistic that speaks to the inadequacy of reporting structures rather than the frequency of the events.

Middle & High Schools Claim "Zero" Incidents

AAUW also analyzed 2015-16 data from the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) from 96,000 public and public charter P-12 educational institutions — including magnet schools, special education schools, alternative schools and juvenile justice facilities. It found that more than 3/4 (79%) of the 48,000 public schools with grades 7 through 12 disclosed zero reported allegations of harassment or bullying  on the basis of  sex.   This more likely reflects the lack of reporting than it does the incidents of misconduct.

Know Your Rights: Workplace Sexual Harassment

Know Your Rights: Sexual Harassment and Assault on Campus

Policy Recommendations: Campus Sexual Misconduct

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Sexual assault incidents among college undergraduates: Prevalence and factors associated with risk

Claude a. mellins.

1 Division of Gender, Sexuality and Health, Departments of Psychiatry and Sociomedical Sciences, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America

2 Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, New York, New York, United States of America

3 Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Aaron L. Sarvet

4 Division of Biostatistics, Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America

Melanie Wall

5 Department of Biostatistics, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Louisa Gilbert

6 Social Intervention Group, School of Social Work, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

John S. Santelli

7 Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Martie Thompson

8 Department of Youth, Family, and Community Studies, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, United States of America

Patrick A. Wilson

9 Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Shamus Khan

10 Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Stephanie Benson

Karimata bah, kathy a. kaufman, leigh reardon, jennifer s. hirsch, associated data.

The data underlying the study cannot be made available, beyond the aggregated data that are included in the paper, because of concerns related to participant confidentiality. Sharing the individual-level survey data would violate the terms of our agreement with research participants, and the Columbia University Medical Center IRB has confirmed that the potential for deductive identification and the risk of loss of confidentiality is too great to share the data, even if de-identified.

Sexual assault on college campuses is a public health issue. However varying research methodologies (e.g., different sexual assault definitions, measures, assessment timeframes) and low response rates hamper efforts to define the scope of the problem. To illuminate the complexity of campus sexual assault, we collected survey data from a large population-based random sample of undergraduate students from Columbia University and Barnard College in New York City, using evidence based methods to maximize response rates and sample representativeness, and behaviorally specific measures of sexual assault to accurately capture victimization rates. This paper focuses on student experiences of different types of sexual assault victimization, as well as sociodemographic, social, and risk environment correlates. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression were used to estimate prevalences and test associations. Since college entry, 22% of students reported experiencing at least one incident of sexual assault (defined as sexualized touching, attempted penetration [oral, anal, vaginal, other], or completed penetration). Women and gender nonconforming students reported the highest rates (28% and 38%, respectively), although men also reported sexual assault (12.5%). Across types of assault and gender groups, incapacitation due to alcohol and drug use and/or other factors was the perpetration method reported most frequently (> 50%); physical force (particularly for completed penetration in women) and verbal coercion were also commonly reported. Factors associated with increased risk for sexual assault included non-heterosexual identity, difficulty paying for basic necessities, fraternity/sorority membership, participation in more casual sexual encounters (“hook ups”) vs. exclusive/monogamous or no sexual relationships, binge drinking, and experiencing sexual assault before college. High rates of re-victimization during college were reported across gender groups. Our study is consistent with prevalence findings previously reported. Variation in types of assault and methods of perpetration experienced across gender groups highlight the need to develop prevention strategies tailored to specific risk groups.

Introduction

Recent estimates of sexual assault victimization among college students in the United States (US) are as high as 20–25% [ 1 – 3 ], prompting universities to enhance or develop policies and programs to prevent sexual assault. However, a 2016 review [ 4 ] highlights the variation in sexual assault prevalence estimates (1.8% to 34%) which likely can be attributed to methodological differences across studies, including varying sexual assault definitions, sampling methods, assessment timeframes, and target populations [ 4 ]. Such differences can hamper efforts to understand the scope of the problem. Moreover, while accurate estimates of prevalence are crucial for calling attention to the population-health burden of sexual assault, knowing more about risk factors is critical for determining resource allocation and developing effective programs and policies for prevention.

Reasons for the variation in prevalence estimates include different definitions of sexual assault and assessment methods. Under the rubric of sexual assault, researchers have investigated experiences ranging from sexual harassment at school or work, to unwanted touching, including fondling on the street or dance floor, to either unwanted/non-consensual attempts at oral, anal or vaginal sexual intercourse (attempted penetrative sex), or completed penetrative sex [ 3 , 5 – 7 ]. Some studies have focused on a composite variable of multiple forms of unwanted/non-consensual sexual contact [ 8 , 9 ] while others focus on a single behavior, such as completed rape [ 10 ]. Some studies focus on acts perpetrated by a single method (e.g. incapacitation due to alcohol and drug use or other factors) [ 11 ], while others include a range of methods (e.g., physical force, verbal coercion, and incapacitation) [ 12 – 15 ]. In general, studies that ask about a wide range of acts and use behaviorally specific questions about types of sexual assault and methods of perpetration have yielded more accurate estimates [ 16 ]. Behavioral specificity avoids the pitfall of participants using their own sexual assault definitions and does not require the respondent to identify as a victim or survivor, which may lead to underreporting [ 10 , 17 – 19 ].

Although an increasing number of studies have used behaviorally specific methods and examined prevalence and predictors of sexual assault [ 20 , 21 ], they typically have used convenience samples. Only a few published studies have used population-based surveys and achieved response rates sufficient to mitigate some of the concerns of sample response bias [ 4 ]. US federal agencies have urged universities to implement standardized “campus climate surveys” to assess the prevalence and reporting of sexual violence [ 22 ]. Although these surveys have emphasized behavioral specificity, many have yielded low response rates (e.g., 25%) [ 23 ], particularly among men [ 24 ], creating potential for response bias in the obtained data. Population-based probability samples with behavioral specificity, good response rates, sufficiently large samples to examine risk for specific subgroups (e.g., sexual minority students), and detailed information on personal, social, or contextual risk factors (e.g., alcohol use) [ 22 , 23 ] are needed to more accurately define prevalence and inform evidence-based sexual assault prevention programs.

Existing evidence suggests that most sexual assault incidents are perpetrated against women [ 25 ]; however, few studies have examined college men as survivors of assault [ 26 – 28 ]. Furthermore, our understanding of how sexual orientation and gender identity relate to risk for sexual assault is limited, despite indications that lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB), and gender non-conforming (GNC) students are at high risk [ 29 – 31 ]. It is unclear if these groups are at higher risk for all types of sexual assault or if prevention programming should be tailored to address particular types of assault within these groups. Also, although women appear to be at highest risk for assault during freshman year [ 32 , 33 ], the dearth of studies with men or GNC students have limited conclusions about whether freshman year is also a risky period for them.

Additional factors associated with experiencing sexual assault in college students include being a racial/ethnic minority student (although there are mixed findings on race/ethnicity) [ 34 , 35 ], low financial status, and prior history of sexual assault [ 3 , 33 , 36 ]. Other risk factors include variables related to student social life, including being a freshman [ 24 ], participating in fraternities and sororities [ 19 , 37 , 38 ], binge drinking [ 1 , 39 ] and participating in “hook-up” culture [ 40 – 42 ]. Whether sexual assault is happening in the context of more casual, typically non-committal sexual relationships (“hook-ups”) [ 40 ] vs. steady intimate or monogamous relationships has important implications for prevention efforts.

To fill some of these knowledge gaps, we examined survey data collected from a large population-based random sample of undergraduate women, men, and GNC students at Columbia University (CU) and Barnard College (BC). The aims of this paper are to:

• Estimate the prevalence of types of sexual assault incidents involving a) sexualized touching, b) attempted penetrative (oral, anal or vaginal) sex, and c) completed penetrative sex since starting at CU/BC;
• Describe the methods of perpetration (e.g., incapacitation, physical force, verbal coercion) used; and
• Examine associations between key sociodemographic, social and romantic/sexual relationship factors and different types of sexual assault victimization, and how these associations differ by gender.

Materials and methods

This study used data from a population-representative survey that formed one component of the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) study. SHIFT used mixed methods to examine risk and protective factors affecting sexual health and sexual violence among college undergraduates from two inter-related institutions, CU’s undergraduate schools (co-educational) and BC (women only), both located in New York City. SHIFT featured ethnographic research, the survey, and a daily diary study. Additionally, SHIFT focused on internal policy-translation work to inform institutionally-appropriate, multi-level approaches to prevention.

Participants

Survey participants were selected via stratified random sampling from the March 2016 population of 9,616 CU/BC undergraduate students ages 18–29 years. We utilized evidence-based methods to enhance response rates and sample representativeness [ 22 , 43 ]. Using administrative records of enrolled students, 2,500 students (2,000 from CU and 500 from BC) were invited via email to participate in a web-based survey. Of these 2,500 students, 1,671 (67%) consented to participate (see Procedures). Among those who consented to participate, 80.5% were from CU and 19.5% were from BC (see Table 1 below for demographic data on the CU/BC student population, the random sample of students contacted, the survey responders, and the current analytic sample).

a Cramer’s V is a measure of effect size for the difference between the demographic distributions in the responders (n = 1671) vs the full sample (n = 2500). Cohen (1988) recommends that when Cramer’s V <0.10 this indicates small effects suggesting no practical difference between samples.

b Senior responders included (n = 9) students who self-reported their year in school as fifth or more (undergrad only).

SHIFT employed multiple procedures to assure protection of students involved in our study; these procedures also improve scientific rigor. The study was approved by the Columbia University Medical Center Institutional Review Board and we obtained a federal Certificate of Confidentiality to legally protect our data from subpoena. SHIFT also obtained a University waiver from reporting on individual sexual assaults, as reporting would obviate student privacy and willingness to participate. Students were offered information about referrals to health and mental health resources during the consent process and at the end of the survey, and such information was available from SHIFT via other communication channels. Finally, in reporting data we suppressed data from tables where there were less than 3 subjects in any cell to avoid the possibility of deductive identification of an individual student [ 44 ].

SHIFT used principles of Community Based Participatory Research regarding ongoing dialogue with University stakeholders on study development and implementation to maximize the quality of data and impact of research findings [ 45 ]. This included weekly meetings between SHIFT investigators and an Undergraduate Advisory Board, consisting of 13–18 students, reflecting the undergraduate student body’s diversity in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, year in school, and activities (e.g., fraternity/sorority membership). It also included regular meetings with an Institutional Advisory Board comprised of senior administrators, including CU’s Office of General Counsel, facilities, sexual violence response, student conduct, officials involved in gender-based misconduct concerns, athletics, a chaplain, mental health and counseling, residential life, student health, and student life.

Following both the Undergraduate Advisory Board’s recommendations and Dillman’s Tailored Design Method for maximizing survey response rates [ 43 ], multiple methods were used to advertise and recruit students. These included: a) email messages, both to generate interest and remind students who had been selected to participate, crafted to resonate with diverse student motives for participation (e.g., interest in sexual assault, compensation, community spirit, and achieving higher response rates than surveys at peer institutions), b) posting flyers, c) holding “study breaks,” in which students were given snacks and drinks, and d) tabling in public areas on campus.

Participants used a unique link to access the survey either at our on-campus research office where computers and snacks were provided (16% of participants) or at a location of their choosing (84% of participants) from March-May, 2016. Before beginning the survey, participants were asked to provide informed consent on an electronic form describing the study, confidentiality, compensation for time and effort, data handling procedures, and the right to refuse to answer any question. Students who completed the survey received $40 in compensation, given in cash to those who completed the survey in our on-campus research office or as an electronic gift card if completed elsewhere. Students were also entered into a lottery to win additional $200 electronic gift cards. This compensation was established based on feedback from student and institutional advisors and reviewed by our Institutional Review Board. It was judged to be sufficient to promote participation, and help ensure that we captured a representative sample, including students who might otherwise have to choose between paid opportunities and participating in our survey, but not great enough to feel coercive for low resource students. This amount of compensation is in line with other similar studies [ 46 ]. On average, the survey took 35–40 minutes to complete.

The SHIFT survey included behaviorally-specific measures of different types of sexual assault, perpetrated by different methods, as well as measures of key sociodemographic, social and sexual relationship factors, and risk environment characteristics. The majority of instruments had been validated previously with college- age students. The survey was administered in English using Qualtrics ( www.qualtrics.com ), providing a secure platform for online data collection.

Sexual assault

Sexual assault was assessed with a slightly modified version of the revised Sexual Experiences Survey [ 16 ], the most widely used measure of sexual assault victimization with very good psychometric properties including internal consistency and validity previously published [ 17 , 47 ]. The Sexual Experiences Survey employs behaviorally specific questions to improve accuracy [ 18 ]. The scale includes questions on type of assault, including sexualized touching without penetration (touching, kissing, fondling, grabbing in a sexual way), attempted but not completed penetrative assault (oral, vaginal, anal or other type of penetration; herein referred to as attempted penetrative assault) and completed penetrative assault (herein referred to as penetrative assault). We used most of the Sexual Experiences Survey as is. However, with strong urging from our Undergraduate Advisory Board, we made a modification, combining the questions about different types of penetration (oral, vaginal, etc.) rather than asking about each kind separately. In the Sexual Experiences Survey, for each type of assault there are six methods of perpetration. Two of the types reflect verbal coercion: 1) “Telling lies, threatening to end the relationship, threatening to spread rumors about me, making promises I knew were untrue, or continually verbally pressuring me after I said I didn’t want to” (herein referred to as “lying/threats”), and 2) “Showing displeasure, criticizing my sexuality or attractiveness, getting angry but not using physical force, after I said I didn’t want to” (herein referred to as “criticism”). The remaining types included use of physical force, threats of physical harm, or incapacitation (“Taking advantage when I couldn’t say no because I was either too drunk, passed out, asleep or otherwise incapacitated”), and other. For each incident of sexual assault, participants could endorse multiple methods of perpetration. Participants were also asked to report whether these experiences occurred: a) during the current academic year (this was a second modification to the Sexual Experiences Survey) and/or b) since enrollment but prior to the current academic year. For this paper, data for the two time periods were combined, reflecting the entire period since starting CU/BC. See Fig 1 for a replica of the questionnaire.

Demographics

Demographics included gender identity (male, female, trans-male/trans-female, gender queer/gender-non-conforming, other) [ 48 ], year in school (e.g., freshman, sophomore, junior, senior), age, US born (yes/no), lived in US less than five years (yes/no; proxy for recent international student status), transfer student (yes/no), low socioeconomic status (receipt of Pell grant-yes/no [need-based grants for low-income students, with eligibility dependent on family income]); how often participant has trouble paying for basic necessities (never, rarely, sometimes, often, all of the time), and race/ethnicity (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic-Asian, non-Hispanic black, Hispanic/Latin-x, other [other included: American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, More than one Race/Ethnicity, Other]). Gender was categorized as follows: female, male and GNC (students who responded to gender identity question as anything other than male or female).

Fraternity/Sorority

Fraternity/sorority membership (ever participated) was assessed with one question from a school activities checklist (yes/no). We report on Greek life participation here to engage with the substantial attention this has received as a risk factor.

Problematic drinking

Problematic drinking during the last year was assessed with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) [ 49 ], a widely used, well-validated standardized 10-item screening tool developed by the World Health Organization. Psychometrics have been established in numerous studies [ 50 – 52 ]. The AUDIT assesses alcohol consumption, drinking behaviors, and alcohol-related problems. Participants rate each question on a 5-point scale from 0 (never) to 4 (daily or almost daily) for possible scores ranging from 0 to 40. The range of AUDIT scores represents varying levels of risk: 0–7 (low), 8–15 (risky or hazardous), 16–19 (high-risk or harmful), and 20 or greater (high-risk). We also examined one AUDIT item on binge drinking, defined as having 6+ drinks on one occasion at least monthly [ 49 ].

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation was assessed with one question with the following response options (students could select all that applied): asexual, pansexual, bisexual, queer, heterosexual and homosexual, as well as other [ 53 , 54 ]. Students were categorized into four mutually exclusive groups for analyses: heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, and other which included asexual, pansexual, queer, or another identity not listed. Non-heterosexual students who indicated more than one orientation were assigned hierarchically to bisexual, homosexual, then other.

Romantic/sexual relationships

Romantic/sexual relationships since enrollment at CU/BC were assessed with one question. Response choices included: none, steady or serious relationship, exclusive or monogamous relationship, hook-up-one time, and ongoing hook-up or friends with benefits. Students defined “hookup” for themselves. Students could check all that applied. This variable was trichotomized: at least one hook-up, only steady or exclusive/monogamous relationships, and no romantic/sexual relationships.

Pre-college sexual assault

Students also were asked one yes/no question on whether they had experienced any unwanted sexual contact prior to enrolling at CU/BC.

Data analysis

To assess the representativeness of the sample, the distribution of demographic variables based on administrative records from CU and BC for the total University undergraduate population were compared to the random sample of students contacted, the survey responders, and the current analytic sample, which consists of students that responded to the questions about sexual assault. Demographics for survey responders are based on self-report from the survey. Cramer’s V effect size was used to assess the magnitude of the differences in demographic distributions between the CU/BC population and respondent sample where smaller values (i.e. Cramer’s V <0.10) indicate strong similarity [ 55 ].

Analyses were performed on each type of sexual assault as well as a combined “Any type of sexual assault” variable: yes/no experienced sexualized touching, attempted penetrative assault, and/or penetrative assault since CU/BC. Prevalence of each type of sexual assault was calculated by gender and year in school, with chi-square tests of difference used to compare prevalence between genders across each year in school versus freshman year. The total number of incidents of assault and the mean, median and standard deviation for number of incidents of assault per person reporting at least one assault were summarized. Among individuals who experienced any type of sexual assault, the proportions that experienced a particular method of perpetration (e.g. incapacitation, physical force) were calculated by type of sexual assault. Chi-square tests compared proportions between males and females for each perpetration method. The associations of each key correlate with the odds of experiencing any sexual assault were calculated and tested using logistic regression stratified by male/female gender. In addition, a multinomial regression with hierarchical categories (no assault, sexualized touching only, attempted penetrative assault [not completed], and penetrative assault [completed]) as the outcome was performed to examine if associations differed by type of sexual assault. To adjust for the fact that the sample comes from a finite population (i.e. CU/BC N = 5,765 women; N = 3,851 men), a standard finite population correction was implemented for standard error estimation using SAS Proc Surveylogistic. Given the low sample size of GNC students, they were excluded from some analyses. All analyses were conducted using SAS (v. 9.4).

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 presents demographic data on the full University, the randomly selected sample, the respondents and the analytic sample for this paper. Among students who consented to the survey (n = 1,671), 46 stopped the survey before the sexual assault questions and 33 refused to answer them resulting in an analytic sample of n = 1,592 (95% completion among responders). Demographic characteristics (i.e. gender [male, female], age, race/ethnicity, year in school, international status, and economic need [Pell grant status]) of the respondent sample were very similar (Cramer’s V effect size differences all <0.10 [ 55 ]) to the full CU/BC population ( Table 1 ) indicating that the responder and final analytic samples were representative of the student body population.

The analytic sample included 58% women, 40% men, and 2% GNC students (4 students refused to identify their gender) and was distributed evenly by year in school with most (92%) between18-23 years of age. Self-reported race/ethnicity was 43% white non-Hispanic, 23% Asian, 15% Hispanic/Latino, and 8% black non-Hispanic; 13% were transfer students, and the majority of the sample was born in the US (76%). Twenty-three percent of participants received Pell grants and 51% of students acknowledged at least sometimes having difficulty paying for basic necessities.

The majority of women (79%) and men (85%) identified as heterosexual. In terms of romantic/sexual relationships since starting CU/BC, 30.0% of women and 21.6% of men reported no relationships, 21.0% of women and 22.6% of men reported only steady/exclusive relationships with no hookups, and 49.0% of women and 55.7% of men reported at least one hook-up. Finally, 25.5% of women, 9.4% of men, and 47.0% of GNC students reported pre-college sexual assault.

Aim 1: Prevalence of sexual assault victimization at CU/BC

Overall rates by gender and school year.

Since starting CU/BC, 22.0% (350/1,592) of students reported experiencing at least one incident of any sexual assault across the three types (sexualized touching, attempted penetrative assault, and penetrative assault). Table 2 presents data on types of assault by gender and year in school. Women were over twice as likely as men to report any sexual assault (28.1% vs 12.5%). There was evidence of cumulative risk for experiencing sexual assault among women over four years of college, so that by junior and senior year, respectively, 29.7% and 36.4% of women reported experiencing any sexual assault, compared to 21.0% of freshman women who had only one year of possible exposure (p < .05). However, one-fifth (21.0%) of women who took the survey as freshman had experienced unwanted sexual contact, compared to 36.4% over 3+ years (seniors), suggesting that as others have found, the risk of assault is highest in freshman year.

Note: Some respondents reported multiple unique incidents corresponding to multiple types of unwanted sexual contact; therefore, total number of respondents who experienced each of the three types of unwanted sexual contact do not sum to total number of respondents who experienced "Any type" of unwanted sexual contact.

* p < .05 for test of proportion difference vs. Freshman within each gender.

Cells with 3 or fewer respondents have been suppressed, noted here with a dash through the cell.

Among men, one in eight indicated that they had been sexually assaulted since starting CU. Similar to women, the risk for sexual assault among men accumulated over the four years of college, with 15.6% of seniors vs 9.9% of freshman reporting a sexual assault since entering CU, although this difference was not statistically significant.

Although the numbers were small, GNC students reported the highest prevalence of sexual assault since starting CU/BC (38.5%; 10/26). Numbers were too small (n<3) to present stratified by year in school (see Table 2 ).

Types of sexual assault by gender ( Table 2 )

The most prevalent form of sexual assault was sexualized touching; rates for women (23.6%) and GNC students (38.5%) were significantly higher than rates for men (11.0%; p < .05). Prevalence of attempted penetrative assault and penetrative assault were about half that of sexualized touching. Compared to men, women were three times as likely to report attempted penetrative assault (11.1% vs 3.8%) and over twice as likely to experience penetrative assault (13.6% vs 5.2%). Among GNC students, the majority reporting sexualized touching, with rates of the other two types too small to report.

Experiencing multiple sexual assaults ( Fig 2 ; S1 Table )

Students could report multiple types of sexual assault incidents (i.e. sexualized touching, attempted penetrative, and penetrative assault) as well as multiple incidents experienced of each type. Overall, students reported a total of 1,007 incidents of sexual assault experienced since starting CU/BC. For the 350 students who indicated any sexual assault, the median number of incidents experienced was 3.

Among the 350 students reporting any sexual assault, Fig 2 presents different combinations of sexual assault experienced by students since CU/BC. Most prevalent, 38.0% reported experiencing only sexualized touching; 19.0% reported both sexualized touching and penetrative assault incidents; 17.0% experienced all three types of assault; and 12.0% sexualized touching and attempted penetrative assault.

Aim 2: Methods of perpetration (lying/threats, criticism, incapacitation, physical force, threats of harm, and other) by gender ( Table 3 )

* p < .05 for test of proportion difference between male vs female for specific method of coercion by type.

a % can add up to more than 100% within type due to multiple coercion methods reported.

Across types of assault, incapacitation was the method of perpetration reported most frequently (> 50%) in both men and women. For both women and men, approximately two-thirds of all penetrative assaults and about half of sexualized touching and attempted penetrative assaults involved incapacitation.

Physical force was reported significantly more frequently by women than men (34.6% vs 12.7%) for any sexual assault. More specifically, compared to men, women were three times more likely to experience sexualized touching via physical force (32.1% vs. 10.0%), and six times more likely to experience penetrative assaults via physical force (33.3% vs 6.1%).

Lastly, a sizeable number of respondents reported verbal coercion (ranging from 21.0% to over 40.0% depending on type of assault). Criticism was cited by women at rates similar to physical force for both sexualized touching and penetrative assaults. Among men, both verbal coercion methods were cited most frequently after incapacitation for all three types of assault.

For GNC students, we examined rates of each perpetration method for only the composite variable any sexual assault (due to small numbers in any specific type of assault). Among those who experienced an assault, incapacitation was the most frequently mentioned method (50.0%), followed by criticism (40.0%).

Aim 3: Identify factors associated with sexual assault experiences

We examined the association between sexual assault (both any sexual assault [ Table 4 ] and each type of sexual assault [ Table 5 ]) and key demographic, sexual history and social activity factors. Results are stratified by gender (women/men).

a As measured by a score of 8 or more on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).

NE = Not estimable due to small cell sizes.

Race/Ethnicity

For both women and men, the prevalence of any sexual assault was similar for all race/ethnicity groups compared to non-Hispanic White students with one exception. Asian students (women and men) were less likely to experience any sexual assault than non-Hispanic White students. For women only, differences emerged by type of assault. Asian women compared to non-Hispanic White women were less likely to experience penetrative assault (OR = 0.35, CI: 0.19–0.62), but not attempted penetrative assault (OR = 0.56, CI: 0.25–1.26), nor sexualized touching only (OR = 1.00, CI: 0.59–1.69). Black women were found to have increased odds of touching only incidents compared to non-Hispanic White women (OR = 1.99, CI: 1.05–3.74). There were no other significant racial or ethnic differences.

Economic precarity

Women who often or always had difficulty paying for basic necessities had increased odds of any sexual assault; for men the trend was similar but it did not reach statistical significance. Considering penetrative assault specifically, both men and women who often or always had difficulty paying for basic necessities had increased risk (women OR = 2.24, CI: 1.23–4.09; men OR = 3.07, CI: 1.04–9.07) compared to those who never had difficulty.

Transfer student

Women transfer students were less likely to experience any sexual assault than non-transfer students. Closer inspection of type of assault revealed that this protective effect was seen for sexualized touching only (OR = 0.34, CI: 0.15–0.80), but not for penetrative (OR = 0.60, CI: 0.34–1.08), nor attempted penetrative (OR = 1.03, CI: 0.48–2.21) assault. There were no significant differences between men who were transfer students and those who were not.

For women, those who identified as bisexual and those who identified as some other sexual identity besides heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual (includes people endorsing exclusively one or a combination of: Asexual, Pansexual, Queer, or a sexual orientation not listed), were more likely to experience any sexual assault than heterosexual students. For penetrative assault specifically, this increased risk was only present for individuals with some other sexual identity (OR = 2.11, CI: 1.20–3.73). For men, those who identified as homosexual were more likely to experience any sexual assault than heterosexual male students. For penetrative assault specifically, those who identified as homosexual, bisexual, or some other sexual identity all had substantially increased risk compared to those with a heterosexual identity (OR = 4.74, CI: 2.10–10.71; OR = 3.39, CI: 1.03–11.16; OR = 4.74, CI:1.10–20.48, respectively).

Information about the gender of the perpetrator for different gender and sexual orientation groups was available for a subset of incidents (336/997). Among these events, 98.4% (3/184) of the heterosexual women indicated the perpetrator was a man, while 97.1% (33/34) of the bisexual women, 75% (3/4) of the homosexual women, and 88.9% (24/27) of the other sexual identity women indicated it was a man. For men who were assaulted, 84.9% (45/53) of the heterosexual men reported the perpetrator was a woman, while 0 of the homosexual men said the perpetrator was a woman. Numbers for bisexual men and other sexual identity men were too small to report separately, but combined showed that 5/8 (63.0%) of bisexual and other sexual identity men said the perpetrator was a woman. Of the GNC students reporting on a most-significant event, 77.8% (7/9) reported that they were assaulted by a male perpetrator (the numbers are too small to further examine by sexual orientation).

Lived in US less than 5 years

There was no association found between living in the US for less than 5 years and any sexual assault, nor any specific type of sexual assault.

Relationship status

Among both women and men, students who had at least one hook-up were more likely to have experienced any sexual assault than students who were in only steady/exclusive relationships since starting college. Among women who had engaged in at least one hook-up, this increased risk held for each type of sexual assault (penetrative: OR = 5.03, CI = 2.91–8.68, attempted penetrative: OR = 4.43, CI = 1.83–10.8, sexualized touching only: OR = 3.26, CI = 1.74–6.09), while among men the increased risk was found for sexualized touching only (OR = 13.33, CI = 2.09–85.08), but could not be estimated (due to small numbers) for completed penetrative assault. Women who did not have any romantic or sexual relationship since CU/BC were found to be less likely to experience penetrative assault than women who had a steady/exclusive relationships only (OR = 0.05, CI: 0.01–0.31).

Fraternity/Sorority membership

Although a relative minority of students participated in fraternities (24.1%) or sororities (18.2%), for both men and women, those who participated were more likely to experience any sexual assault than those who did not. Examination of type of assault revealed that the effect is driven primarily by sexualized touching only which is significant in both women (OR = 1.63, CI: 1.00–2.67) and men (OR = 2.40, CI: 1.25–4.63) and not significantly increased for penetrative nor attempted penetrative assault.

Risky or hazardous drinking

For both men and women, individuals who met criteria on the AUDIT for risky or hazardous drinking were more likely to experience any sexual assault than those who did not. When examining each type of assault separately, for men this increased risk was only significant for penetrative assault (OR = 4.07, CI: 2.01–8.21). For women, the increased risk of assault held for each type of assault—penetrative (OR = 6.04, CI: 4.10–8.90), attempted (OR = 3.38, CI: 1.84–6.19) and touching (OR = 2.33, CI: 1.42–3.81). We also looked at one AUDIT item specifically on binge drinking (6 or more drinks on a single occasion). Individuals who reported binge drinking at least monthly were more likely to experience any sexual assault than those who did not. When examining each type of assault separately, for men this increased risk was only significant for penetrative assault (OR = 2.15, CI: 1.12–4.15). For women, this increased risk was significant for penetrative assault (OR = 3.12, CI: 2.09–4.65), attempted assault (OR = 2.28, CI: 1.20–4.33), and touching (OR = 2.42, CI:1.50–3.91).

Pre-college assault ( Table 5 )

Among both women and men, those who experienced pre-college assault were more likely to experience any sexual assault while at CU/BC. The increased risk held for penetrative assault in both women (OR = 3.01, CI: 2.07–4.37) and men (OR = 2.44, CI: 1.03–5.76). In women, the increased risk also held for attempted penetrative, but not touching only, whereas in men, the increased risk held for touching only, but not attempted penetrative sex.

The SHIFT survey, with a population-representative sample, good response rate and behaviorally-specific questions, found that 22.0% of students reported a sexual assault since starting college, which confirms previous studies of 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 prevalence estimates with national samples and a range of types of schools [ 23 , 24 ]. However, a key finding is that focusing only on the “1 in 4/ 1 in 5” rate of any sexual assault obscures much of the nuance concerning types of sexual assault as well as the differential group risk, as prevalence rates were unevenly distributed across gender and several other social and demographic factors.

Similar to other studies [ 4 , 24 ], women had much higher rates of experiencing any type of sexual assault compared to men (28.0% vs 12.0%). Moreover, our data suggest a cumulative risk for sexual assault experiences over four years of college with over one in three women experiencing an assault by senior year. However, our data also suggest that freshman year, particularly for women, is when the greatest percentage experience an assault. This supports other work on freshman year as a particularly critical time for prevention efforts, otherwise known as the “red zone” effect for women [ 32 ].

Importantly, our study confirms that GNC students are at heightened risk for sexual assault [ 23 ]. They had the highest proportion of sexual assaults, with 38.0% reporting at least one incident, the majority of which involved unwanted/non-consensual sexualized touching. These data should be interpreted very cautiously given the small number of GNC students. However, increasingly studies suggest that transgender and other GNC students have sexual health needs that may not be targeted by traditional programming [ 57 ]; thus, a better understanding of pathways to vulnerability among these students is of high importance.

Similarly, students who identified as a sexual orientation other than heterosexual were at increased risk for experiencing any sexual assault, with bisexual women or women who identified as “other” and men who identified as any non-heterosexual category at increased risk. Similar to GNC students, understanding the specific social and sexual health needs of LGB students, particularly as it relates to reducing sexual assault risk is critical to prevention efforts [ 58 ]. Factors such as stigma and discrimination, lack of communication, substance use, as well as a potential lack of tailored prevention programs may play a role. To our knowledge, there are no evidence-based college sexual assault prevention programs targeting LGB and GNC students. Our data suggest that the LGB and GNC experiences are not uniform; more research should be done within each of these groups to understand the mechanisms behind their potentially unique risk factors.

Our data also suggest that the 20–25% rate of any sexual assault obscures variation in assault experiences. Sexualized touching accounted for the highest percentage of acts across gender groups, with over one-third of participants reporting only sexualized touching incidents. Rates of attempted and completed penetrative sexual assault were about half the rate of sexualized touching. This finding does not minimize the importance of addressing unacceptably high rates of attempted penetrative and penetrative assault (14%-15%), but it does suggest the importance of specificity in prevention efforts. For GNC students, for example, the risk of assault was primarily for sexualized touching with very few reporting attempted penetrative assault or penetrative assault during their time at CU/BC. These elevated rates of unwanted sexual touching may be a combination of GNC students’ focus on their gendered sexual boundaries–and thus potentially greater awareness of when advances are unwanted–at a developmental moment when they are building non-traditional gender identities, as well as these students’ social vulnerability. Further investigation is warranted.

Moreover, there was variation in methods of perpetration reported by survivors of sexual assault. Incapacitation was the most common method reported across all gender groups for each type of assault, and female and male students who reported risky or hazardous drinking were at increased risk for experiencing any sexual assault, particularly penetrative assault. Across campuses in the US, hazardous drinking is a national problem with substantive negative health outcomes, risk for sexual assault being one of them [ 2 , 39 , 59 ]. Our data underline the potential of programs and policies to reduce substance use and limit its harms as one element of comprehensive sexual assault prevention; we found few evidence-based interventions that address both binge drinking and sexual assault prevention. Of course, any work addressing substance use as a driver of vulnerability must do so in a way that does not replicate victim-blaming.

However, similar to other studies with broad foci, incapacitation was not the only method of perpetration reported. For women, physical force, particularly for penetrative sex, was the second most frequently endorsed method. Verbal coercion, including criticism, lying and threats to end the relationship or spread rumors, was also employed at rates similar to physical force for women, and was the second most frequently endorsed category for men and GNC students. Prevention programs, such as the bystander interventions which are the focus of efforts on many campuses [ 60 ], often focus on incapacitation or physical force. These interventions tend to highlight situations where survivors (typically women) are vulnerable because they are under the influence of substances. In SHIFT, verbal coercion is also shown to be a powerful driver of assault; however, it typically does not receive as much attention as rape, which is legally defined as penetration due to physical force or incapacitation. If a survivor is verbally coerced into providing affirmative consent, the incident could be considered within consent guidelines of “yes means yes” but it may have been unwanted by the survivor [ 61 , 62 ]. Assertiveness interventions and those that focus on verbal consent practices may be useful for addressing this form of assault.

We also found high rates of re-victimization. As others have found, pre-college sexual assault was a key predictor for experiencing assault at CU/BC [ 33 , 36 ]. However, we also found high rates of repeat victimization since starting at CU/BC with a median of 3 incidents per person reporting any sexual assault since starting CU/BC, and the highest risk of repeat victimization in women and GNC students. These data underline the importance of prevention efforts that include care for survivors to reduce the enhanced vulnerability that has been shown in other populations of assault survivors [ 36 ]. Future studies should also seek to disaggregate the relationship between type of victimization (sexualized touching, attempted penetrative assault, penetrative assault) and repeat victimization.

This study also identified a number of variables associated with sexual assault, some similar to previous studies and others different. As noted, gender was a key correlate. While prevention efforts should respond to the population-level burden by focusing on the needs of women and GNC students, it is important to note that men were also at risk of sexual assault. In our study, nearly 1 in 8 men reported a sexual assault experience, a rate also found in the Online College Social Life survey [ 56 ], but higher than other studies [ 63 , 64 ]. Few programs target men, and issues around masculinity and gender roles may make it difficult for men to consider or report what has happened to them as sexual assault. Importantly, this study found that men who were members of fraternities were at higher risk for experiencing assault (specifically unwanted/nonconsensual sexualized touching) than those who were not members. This is consistent with previous findings, including the Online College Social Life survey [ 56 ], but is of particular note because research has identified men in fraternities as more likely to be perpetrators [ 64 ], but few, if any, studies have looked at fraternity members’ vulnerability to sexual assault. Our data suggest a need for further examination of the cultural and organizational dimensions of Greek life that produce this heightened risk of being assaulted for both men and women. However, it is important to note that we did not examine a range of other social and extracurricular groups which may have produced risk as well and thus a more full examination of student undergraduate life is needed.

One other key factor associated with assault was participation in “hook ups”. Both male and female students who reported hooking up were more likely to report experiencing sexual assault, compared to students who only had exclusive or monogamous relationships and those who had no sexual relationships. The role of hooking up on college campuses has received much attention in the popular press and in a number of books [ 65 , 66 ], but little has been written about its connection to sexual assault, although several recent studies are in line with ours about its role as a risk factor for experiencing sexual assault on college campuses [ 40 , 41 ]. Multiple mechanisms may be at work: students who participate in hookups may be having sex with more people, and thus face greater risk of assault due to greater exposure to sex with a potential perpetrator, but students who participate in hookups may also face increased vulnerability because many hookups involve “drunk” sex, or because hookups by definition involve sexual interactions between people who are not in a long-term intimate relationship, and thus whose bodies and social cues maybe unfamiliar to each other. Alternatively some aspects of hook-ups may be more or less risky than others and therefore continued study of different dimensions of these more casual relationships that can refer to a wide-range of behaviors is necessary.

Several demographic characteristics were not for the most part associated with sexual assault. We did not find racial or ethnic differences in sexual assault risk with primarily one exception, Asian male and female students were at less risk overall compared to white students. We also did not find transfer students to be at greater risk; female transfer students were actually at lower risk, potentially due to less exposure time, particularly during freshman year. International student status as indicated by having been in the US<5 years was also not associated with increased risk. However, this study highlights the role of economic factors that have received limited attention in the literature. Little is known about how economic insecurity may drive vulnerability, but issues of power, privilege, and control of alcohol and space all require further examination.

There are several limitations to this study. Participants came from only two private schools that are interconnected in one city, and thus findings may not generalize to the rest of the US. There is a continued need for more national studies with different types of colleges and universities in urban and rural environments with more varied economic backgrounds in order to fully understand institutional and contextual differences. Although we had a response rate that was higher than many prior studies and our rates of sexual assault are consistent with prior studies [ 4 ], we cannot assess the extent to which selection bias may have occurred and therefore, our rates could be an underrepresentation or overrepresentation depending on who chose to participate. Although this concern is somewhat mitigated by findings that basic demographic data between respondents and the total population of students at two colleges suggest no significant differences, there may be some bias in factors we did not consider. Our present analysis has focused only on bivariate associations between risk factors and assault. While this analysis provides a valuable description of which groups are at elevated risk or not, future work will consider how combinations of risk factors at different levels may interact to increase risk. Critically, the analysis presented here reflects a focus on those who experience being assaulted, but in other work we look at the characteristics of perpetrators, both from those who reported perpetrating and from a subset of incidents that survey respondents described in depth, which provided more information about the perpetrator. A greater understanding of the characteristics and contexts of perpetration is without question vital for effective prevention. Finally, our data are cross sectional. Longitudinal studies with a comprehensive range of predictors are critical for identifying pathways of causality and targets for interventions.

Despite these limitations, this study confirms the unacceptably high rates of sexual assault and suggests diversity in experiences and methods of perpetration. A key conclusion is that a”one size fits all” approach that characterizes the extant literature on evidence-based prevention programs [ 67 ] may need to be altered to more effectively prevent sexual assault in college. Clearly different groups had differential risk for assault and may require much more targeted prevention efforts. Bystander interventions have shown promise in addressing risk in social situations, including fraternity parties and other settings with high alcohol use [ 68 , 69 ]. However, bystander interventions may not be sufficient for incidents occurring in non-party contexts where verbal coercion methods or physical force may be used without others around.

Creating effective and sustainable changes to campus culture requires engaging with a broad range of institutional stakeholders. SHIFT investigators are in the process of sharing selected findings with both student and institutional advisory boards, and an intensive collaborative process allows us to explore the implications of our results for a broad range of policies and programs, including both elements commonly considered as sexual assault prevention (consent education, bystander trainings), more general topics related to sexual orientation and verbal discussions of sex, and aspects of the institutional context across diverse domains including alcohol policy, mental health services, residential life policies, orientation planning, and the allocation of space across campus.

Overall, our findings argue for the potential of a systems-based [ 70 ] public health approach–one that recognizes the multiple interrelated factors that produce adverse outcomes, and perhaps particularly emphasizes gender and economic disparities and resulting power dynamics, widespread use of alcohol, attitudes about sexuality, and conversations about sex–to make inroads on an issue that stubbornly persists.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments.

The authors thank our research participants; the Undergraduate Advisory Board; Columbia University’s Office of the President and Office of University Life, and the entire SHIFT team who contributed to the development and implementation of this ambitious effort.

Funding Statement

This research was funded by Columbia University through a donation from the Levine Family. The funder (Levine Family) had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Data Availability

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Research Article

Sexual assault incidents among college undergraduates: Prevalence and factors associated with risk

Contributed equally to this work with: Claude A. Mellins, Kate Walsh, Aaron L. Sarvet, Melanie Wall, Leigh Reardon, Jennifer S. Hirsch

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Division of Gender, Sexuality and Health, Departments of Psychiatry and Sociomedical Sciences, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, New York, New York, United States of America, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Division of Biostatistics, Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Division of Biostatistics, Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, United States of America, Department of Biostatistics, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

¶ ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Social Intervention Group, School of Social Work, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Youth, Family, and Community Studies, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, United States of America

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Methodology

Roles Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

• Claude A. Mellins, 
• Kate Walsh, 
• Aaron L. Sarvet, 
• Melanie Wall, 
• Louisa Gilbert, 
• John S. Santelli, 
• Martie Thompson, 
• Patrick A. Wilson, 
• Shamus Khan, 

• Published: November 8, 2017
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471
• Reader Comments

25 Jan 2018: The PLOS ONE Staff (2018) Correction: Sexual assault incidents among college undergraduates: Prevalence and factors associated with risk. PLOS ONE 13(1): e0192129. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0192129 View correction

Sexual assault on college campuses is a public health issue. However varying research methodologies (e.g., different sexual assault definitions, measures, assessment timeframes) and low response rates hamper efforts to define the scope of the problem. To illuminate the complexity of campus sexual assault, we collected survey data from a large population-based random sample of undergraduate students from Columbia University and Barnard College in New York City, using evidence based methods to maximize response rates and sample representativeness, and behaviorally specific measures of sexual assault to accurately capture victimization rates. This paper focuses on student experiences of different types of sexual assault victimization, as well as sociodemographic, social, and risk environment correlates. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression were used to estimate prevalences and test associations. Since college entry, 22% of students reported experiencing at least one incident of sexual assault (defined as sexualized touching, attempted penetration [oral, anal, vaginal, other], or completed penetration). Women and gender nonconforming students reported the highest rates (28% and 38%, respectively), although men also reported sexual assault (12.5%). Across types of assault and gender groups, incapacitation due to alcohol and drug use and/or other factors was the perpetration method reported most frequently (> 50%); physical force (particularly for completed penetration in women) and verbal coercion were also commonly reported. Factors associated with increased risk for sexual assault included non-heterosexual identity, difficulty paying for basic necessities, fraternity/sorority membership, participation in more casual sexual encounters (“hook ups”) vs. exclusive/monogamous or no sexual relationships, binge drinking, and experiencing sexual assault before college. High rates of re-victimization during college were reported across gender groups. Our study is consistent with prevalence findings previously reported. Variation in types of assault and methods of perpetration experienced across gender groups highlight the need to develop prevention strategies tailored to specific risk groups.

Citation: Mellins CA, Walsh K, Sarvet AL, Wall M, Gilbert L, Santelli JS, et al. (2017) Sexual assault incidents among college undergraduates: Prevalence and factors associated with risk. PLoS ONE 12(11): e0186471. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471

Editor: Hafiz T. A. Khan, University of West London, UNITED KINGDOM

Received: July 28, 2017; Accepted: October 2, 2017; Published: November 8, 2017

Copyright: © 2017 Mellins et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The data underlying the study cannot be made available, beyond the aggregated data that are included in the paper, because of concerns related to participant confidentiality. Sharing the individual-level survey data would violate the terms of our agreement with research participants, and the Columbia University Medical Center IRB has confirmed that the potential for deductive identification and the risk of loss of confidentiality is too great to share the data, even if de-identified.

Funding: This research was funded by Columbia University through a donation from the Levine Family. The funder (Levine Family) had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Recent estimates of sexual assault victimization among college students in the United States (US) are as high as 20–25% [ 1 – 3 ], prompting universities to enhance or develop policies and programs to prevent sexual assault. However, a 2016 review [ 4 ] highlights the variation in sexual assault prevalence estimates (1.8% to 34%) which likely can be attributed to methodological differences across studies, including varying sexual assault definitions, sampling methods, assessment timeframes, and target populations [ 4 ]. Such differences can hamper efforts to understand the scope of the problem. Moreover, while accurate estimates of prevalence are crucial for calling attention to the population-health burden of sexual assault, knowing more about risk factors is critical for determining resource allocation and developing effective programs and policies for prevention.

Reasons for the variation in prevalence estimates include different definitions of sexual assault and assessment methods. Under the rubric of sexual assault, researchers have investigated experiences ranging from sexual harassment at school or work, to unwanted touching, including fondling on the street or dance floor, to either unwanted/non-consensual attempts at oral, anal or vaginal sexual intercourse (attempted penetrative sex), or completed penetrative sex [ 3 , 5 – 7 ]. Some studies have focused on a composite variable of multiple forms of unwanted/non-consensual sexual contact [ 8 , 9 ] while others focus on a single behavior, such as completed rape [ 10 ]. Some studies focus on acts perpetrated by a single method (e.g. incapacitation due to alcohol and drug use or other factors) [ 11 ], while others include a range of methods (e.g., physical force, verbal coercion, and incapacitation) [ 12 – 15 ]. In general, studies that ask about a wide range of acts and use behaviorally specific questions about types of sexual assault and methods of perpetration have yielded more accurate estimates [ 16 ]. Behavioral specificity avoids the pitfall of participants using their own sexual assault definitions and does not require the respondent to identify as a victim or survivor, which may lead to underreporting [ 10 , 17 – 19 ].

Although an increasing number of studies have used behaviorally specific methods and examined prevalence and predictors of sexual assault [ 20 , 21 ], they typically have used convenience samples. Only a few published studies have used population-based surveys and achieved response rates sufficient to mitigate some of the concerns of sample response bias [ 4 ]. US federal agencies have urged universities to implement standardized “campus climate surveys” to assess the prevalence and reporting of sexual violence [ 22 ]. Although these surveys have emphasized behavioral specificity, many have yielded low response rates (e.g., 25%) [ 23 ], particularly among men [ 24 ], creating potential for response bias in the obtained data. Population-based probability samples with behavioral specificity, good response rates, sufficiently large samples to examine risk for specific subgroups (e.g., sexual minority students), and detailed information on personal, social, or contextual risk factors (e.g., alcohol use) [ 22 , 23 ] are needed to more accurately define prevalence and inform evidence-based sexual assault prevention programs.

Existing evidence suggests that most sexual assault incidents are perpetrated against women [ 25 ]; however, few studies have examined college men as survivors of assault [ 26 – 28 ]. Furthermore, our understanding of how sexual orientation and gender identity relate to risk for sexual assault is limited, despite indications that lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB), and gender non-conforming (GNC) students are at high risk [ 29 – 31 ]. It is unclear if these groups are at higher risk for all types of sexual assault or if prevention programming should be tailored to address particular types of assault within these groups. Also, although women appear to be at highest risk for assault during freshman year [ 32 , 33 ], the dearth of studies with men or GNC students have limited conclusions about whether freshman year is also a risky period for them.

Additional factors associated with experiencing sexual assault in college students include being a racial/ethnic minority student (although there are mixed findings on race/ethnicity) [ 34 , 35 ], low financial status, and prior history of sexual assault [ 3 , 33 , 36 ]. Other risk factors include variables related to student social life, including being a freshman [ 24 ], participating in fraternities and sororities [ 19 , 37 , 38 ], binge drinking [ 1 , 39 ] and participating in “hook-up” culture [ 40 – 42 ]. Whether sexual assault is happening in the context of more casual, typically non-committal sexual relationships (“hook-ups”) [ 40 ] vs. steady intimate or monogamous relationships has important implications for prevention efforts.

To fill some of these knowledge gaps, we examined survey data collected from a large population-based random sample of undergraduate women, men, and GNC students at Columbia University (CU) and Barnard College (BC). The aims of this paper are to:

• Estimate the prevalence of types of sexual assault incidents involving a) sexualized touching, b) attempted penetrative (oral, anal or vaginal) sex, and c) completed penetrative sex since starting at CU/BC;
• Describe the methods of perpetration (e.g., incapacitation, physical force, verbal coercion) used; and
• Examine associations between key sociodemographic, social and romantic/sexual relationship factors and different types of sexual assault victimization, and how these associations differ by gender.

Materials and methods

This study used data from a population-representative survey that formed one component of the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) study. SHIFT used mixed methods to examine risk and protective factors affecting sexual health and sexual violence among college undergraduates from two inter-related institutions, CU’s undergraduate schools (co-educational) and BC (women only), both located in New York City. SHIFT featured ethnographic research, the survey, and a daily diary study. Additionally, SHIFT focused on internal policy-translation work to inform institutionally-appropriate, multi-level approaches to prevention.

Participants

Survey participants were selected via stratified random sampling from the March 2016 population of 9,616 CU/BC undergraduate students ages 18–29 years. We utilized evidence-based methods to enhance response rates and sample representativeness [ 22 , 43 ]. Using administrative records of enrolled students, 2,500 students (2,000 from CU and 500 from BC) were invited via email to participate in a web-based survey. Of these 2,500 students, 1,671 (67%) consented to participate (see Procedures). Among those who consented to participate, 80.5% were from CU and 19.5% were from BC (see Table 1 below for demographic data on the CU/BC student population, the random sample of students contacted, the survey responders, and the current analytic sample).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471.t001

SHIFT employed multiple procedures to assure protection of students involved in our study; these procedures also improve scientific rigor. The study was approved by the Columbia University Medical Center Institutional Review Board and we obtained a federal Certificate of Confidentiality to legally protect our data from subpoena. SHIFT also obtained a University waiver from reporting on individual sexual assaults, as reporting would obviate student privacy and willingness to participate. Students were offered information about referrals to health and mental health resources during the consent process and at the end of the survey, and such information was available from SHIFT via other communication channels. Finally, in reporting data we suppressed data from tables where there were less than 3 subjects in any cell to avoid the possibility of deductive identification of an individual student [ 44 ].

SHIFT used principles of Community Based Participatory Research regarding ongoing dialogue with University stakeholders on study development and implementation to maximize the quality of data and impact of research findings [ 45 ]. This included weekly meetings between SHIFT investigators and an Undergraduate Advisory Board, consisting of 13–18 students, reflecting the undergraduate student body’s diversity in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, year in school, and activities (e.g., fraternity/sorority membership). It also included regular meetings with an Institutional Advisory Board comprised of senior administrators, including CU’s Office of General Counsel, facilities, sexual violence response, student conduct, officials involved in gender-based misconduct concerns, athletics, a chaplain, mental health and counseling, residential life, student health, and student life.

Following both the Undergraduate Advisory Board’s recommendations and Dillman’s Tailored Design Method for maximizing survey response rates [ 43 ], multiple methods were used to advertise and recruit students. These included: a) email messages, both to generate interest and remind students who had been selected to participate, crafted to resonate with diverse student motives for participation (e.g., interest in sexual assault, compensation, community spirit, and achieving higher response rates than surveys at peer institutions), b) posting flyers, c) holding “study breaks,” in which students were given snacks and drinks, and d) tabling in public areas on campus.

Participants used a unique link to access the survey either at our on-campus research office where computers and snacks were provided (16% of participants) or at a location of their choosing (84% of participants) from March-May, 2016. Before beginning the survey, participants were asked to provide informed consent on an electronic form describing the study, confidentiality, compensation for time and effort, data handling procedures, and the right to refuse to answer any question. Students who completed the survey received $40 in compensation, given in cash to those who completed the survey in our on-campus research office or as an electronic gift card if completed elsewhere. Students were also entered into a lottery to win additional $200 electronic gift cards. This compensation was established based on feedback from student and institutional advisors and reviewed by our Institutional Review Board. It was judged to be sufficient to promote participation, and help ensure that we captured a representative sample, including students who might otherwise have to choose between paid opportunities and participating in our survey, but not great enough to feel coercive for low resource students. This amount of compensation is in line with other similar studies [ 46 ]. On average, the survey took 35–40 minutes to complete.

The SHIFT survey included behaviorally-specific measures of different types of sexual assault, perpetrated by different methods, as well as measures of key sociodemographic, social and sexual relationship factors, and risk environment characteristics. The majority of instruments had been validated previously with college- age students. The survey was administered in English using Qualtrics ( www.qualtrics.com ), providing a secure platform for online data collection.

Sexual assault.

Sexual assault was assessed with a slightly modified version of the revised Sexual Experiences Survey [ 16 ], the most widely used measure of sexual assault victimization with very good psychometric properties including internal consistency and validity previously published [ 17 , 47 ]. The Sexual Experiences Survey employs behaviorally specific questions to improve accuracy [ 18 ]. The scale includes questions on type of assault, including sexualized touching without penetration (touching, kissing, fondling, grabbing in a sexual way), attempted but not completed penetrative assault (oral, vaginal, anal or other type of penetration; herein referred to as attempted penetrative assault) and completed penetrative assault (herein referred to as penetrative assault). We used most of the Sexual Experiences Survey as is. However, with strong urging from our Undergraduate Advisory Board, we made a modification, combining the questions about different types of penetration (oral, vaginal, etc.) rather than asking about each kind separately. In the Sexual Experiences Survey, for each type of assault there are six methods of perpetration. Two of the types reflect verbal coercion: 1) “Telling lies, threatening to end the relationship, threatening to spread rumors about me, making promises I knew were untrue, or continually verbally pressuring me after I said I didn’t want to” (herein referred to as “lying/threats”), and 2) “Showing displeasure, criticizing my sexuality or attractiveness, getting angry but not using physical force, after I said I didn’t want to” (herein referred to as “criticism”). The remaining types included use of physical force, threats of physical harm, or incapacitation (“Taking advantage when I couldn’t say no because I was either too drunk, passed out, asleep or otherwise incapacitated”), and other. For each incident of sexual assault, participants could endorse multiple methods of perpetration. Participants were also asked to report whether these experiences occurred: a) during the current academic year (this was a second modification to the Sexual Experiences Survey) and/or b) since enrollment but prior to the current academic year. For this paper, data for the two time periods were combined, reflecting the entire period since starting CU/BC. See Fig 1 for a replica of the questionnaire.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471.g001

Demographics.

Demographics included gender identity (male, female, trans-male/trans-female, gender queer/gender-non-conforming, other) [ 48 ], year in school (e.g., freshman, sophomore, junior, senior), age, US born (yes/no), lived in US less than five years (yes/no; proxy for recent international student status), transfer student (yes/no), low socioeconomic status (receipt of Pell grant-yes/no [need-based grants for low-income students, with eligibility dependent on family income]); how often participant has trouble paying for basic necessities (never, rarely, sometimes, often, all of the time), and race/ethnicity (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic-Asian, non-Hispanic black, Hispanic/Latin-x, other [other included: American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, More than one Race/Ethnicity, Other]). Gender was categorized as follows: female, male and GNC (students who responded to gender identity question as anything other than male or female).

Fraternity/Sorority.

Fraternity/sorority membership (ever participated) was assessed with one question from a school activities checklist (yes/no). We report on Greek life participation here to engage with the substantial attention this has received as a risk factor.

Problematic drinking.

Problematic drinking during the last year was assessed with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) [ 49 ], a widely used, well-validated standardized 10-item screening tool developed by the World Health Organization. Psychometrics have been established in numerous studies [ 50 – 52 ]. The AUDIT assesses alcohol consumption, drinking behaviors, and alcohol-related problems. Participants rate each question on a 5-point scale from 0 (never) to 4 (daily or almost daily) for possible scores ranging from 0 to 40. The range of AUDIT scores represents varying levels of risk: 0–7 (low), 8–15 (risky or hazardous), 16–19 (high-risk or harmful), and 20 or greater (high-risk). We also examined one AUDIT item on binge drinking, defined as having 6+ drinks on one occasion at least monthly [ 49 ].

Sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation was assessed with one question with the following response options (students could select all that applied): asexual, pansexual, bisexual, queer, heterosexual and homosexual, as well as other [ 53 , 54 ]. Students were categorized into four mutually exclusive groups for analyses: heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, and other which included asexual, pansexual, queer, or another identity not listed. Non-heterosexual students who indicated more than one orientation were assigned hierarchically to bisexual, homosexual, then other.

Romantic/sexual relationships.

Romantic/sexual relationships since enrollment at CU/BC were assessed with one question. Response choices included: none, steady or serious relationship, exclusive or monogamous relationship, hook-up-one time, and ongoing hook-up or friends with benefits. Students defined “hookup” for themselves. Students could check all that applied. This variable was trichotomized: at least one hook-up, only steady or exclusive/monogamous relationships, and no romantic/sexual relationships.

Pre-college sexual assault.

Students also were asked one yes/no question on whether they had experienced any unwanted sexual contact prior to enrolling at CU/BC.

Data analysis

To assess the representativeness of the sample, the distribution of demographic variables based on administrative records from CU and BC for the total University undergraduate population were compared to the random sample of students contacted, the survey responders, and the current analytic sample, which consists of students that responded to the questions about sexual assault. Demographics for survey responders are based on self-report from the survey. Cramer’s V effect size was used to assess the magnitude of the differences in demographic distributions between the CU/BC population and respondent sample where smaller values (i.e. Cramer’s V <0.10) indicate strong similarity [ 55 ].

Analyses were performed on each type of sexual assault as well as a combined “Any type of sexual assault” variable: yes/no experienced sexualized touching, attempted penetrative assault, and/or penetrative assault since CU/BC. Prevalence of each type of sexual assault was calculated by gender and year in school, with chi-square tests of difference used to compare prevalence between genders across each year in school versus freshman year. The total number of incidents of assault and the mean, median and standard deviation for number of incidents of assault per person reporting at least one assault were summarized. Among individuals who experienced any type of sexual assault, the proportions that experienced a particular method of perpetration (e.g. incapacitation, physical force) were calculated by type of sexual assault. Chi-square tests compared proportions between males and females for each perpetration method. The associations of each key correlate with the odds of experiencing any sexual assault were calculated and tested using logistic regression stratified by male/female gender. In addition, a multinomial regression with hierarchical categories (no assault, sexualized touching only, attempted penetrative assault [not completed], and penetrative assault [completed]) as the outcome was performed to examine if associations differed by type of sexual assault. To adjust for the fact that the sample comes from a finite population (i.e. CU/BC N = 5,765 women; N = 3,851 men), a standard finite population correction was implemented for standard error estimation using SAS Proc Surveylogistic. Given the low sample size of GNC students, they were excluded from some analyses. All analyses were conducted using SAS (v. 9.4).

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 presents demographic data on the full University, the randomly selected sample, the respondents and the analytic sample for this paper. Among students who consented to the survey (n = 1,671), 46 stopped the survey before the sexual assault questions and 33 refused to answer them resulting in an analytic sample of n = 1,592 (95% completion among responders). Demographic characteristics (i.e. gender [male, female], age, race/ethnicity, year in school, international status, and economic need [Pell grant status]) of the respondent sample were very similar (Cramer’s V effect size differences all <0.10 [ 55 ]) to the full CU/BC population ( Table 1 ) indicating that the responder and final analytic samples were representative of the student body population.

The analytic sample included 58% women, 40% men, and 2% GNC students (4 students refused to identify their gender) and was distributed evenly by year in school with most (92%) between18-23 years of age. Self-reported race/ethnicity was 43% white non-Hispanic, 23% Asian, 15% Hispanic/Latino, and 8% black non-Hispanic; 13% were transfer students, and the majority of the sample was born in the US (76%). Twenty-three percent of participants received Pell grants and 51% of students acknowledged at least sometimes having difficulty paying for basic necessities.

The majority of women (79%) and men (85%) identified as heterosexual. In terms of romantic/sexual relationships since starting CU/BC, 30.0% of women and 21.6% of men reported no relationships, 21.0% of women and 22.6% of men reported only steady/exclusive relationships with no hookups, and 49.0% of women and 55.7% of men reported at least one hook-up. Finally, 25.5% of women, 9.4% of men, and 47.0% of GNC students reported pre-college sexual assault.

Aim 1: Prevalence of sexual assault victimization at CU/BC

Overall rates by gender and school year..

Since starting CU/BC, 22.0% (350/1,592) of students reported experiencing at least one incident of any sexual assault across the three types (sexualized touching, attempted penetrative assault, and penetrative assault). Table 2 presents data on types of assault by gender and year in school. Women were over twice as likely as men to report any sexual assault (28.1% vs 12.5%). There was evidence of cumulative risk for experiencing sexual assault among women over four years of college, so that by junior and senior year, respectively, 29.7% and 36.4% of women reported experiencing any sexual assault, compared to 21.0% of freshman women who had only one year of possible exposure (p < .05). However, one-fifth (21.0%) of women who took the survey as freshman had experienced unwanted sexual contact, compared to 36.4% over 3+ years (seniors), suggesting that as others have found, the risk of assault is highest in freshman year.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471.t002

Among men, one in eight indicated that they had been sexually assaulted since starting CU. Similar to women, the risk for sexual assault among men accumulated over the four years of college, with 15.6% of seniors vs 9.9% of freshman reporting a sexual assault since entering CU, although this difference was not statistically significant.

Although the numbers were small, GNC students reported the highest prevalence of sexual assault since starting CU/BC (38.5%; 10/26). Numbers were too small (n<3) to present stratified by year in school (see Table 2 ).

Types of sexual assault by gender ( Table 2 ).

The most prevalent form of sexual assault was sexualized touching; rates for women (23.6%) and GNC students (38.5%) were significantly higher than rates for men (11.0%; p < .05). Prevalence of attempted penetrative assault and penetrative assault were about half that of sexualized touching. Compared to men, women were three times as likely to report attempted penetrative assault (11.1% vs 3.8%) and over twice as likely to experience penetrative assault (13.6% vs 5.2%). Among GNC students, the majority reporting sexualized touching, with rates of the other two types too small to report.

Experiencing multiple sexual assaults ( Fig 2 ; S1 Table ).

Students could report multiple types of sexual assault incidents (i.e. sexualized touching, attempted penetrative, and penetrative assault) as well as multiple incidents experienced of each type. Overall, students reported a total of 1,007 incidents of sexual assault experienced since starting CU/BC. For the 350 students who indicated any sexual assault, the median number of incidents experienced was 3.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471.g002

Among the 350 students reporting any sexual assault, Fig 2 presents different combinations of sexual assault experienced by students since CU/BC. Most prevalent, 38.0% reported experiencing only sexualized touching; 19.0% reported both sexualized touching and penetrative assault incidents; 17.0% experienced all three types of assault; and 12.0% sexualized touching and attempted penetrative assault.

Aim 2: Methods of perpetration (lying/threats, criticism, incapacitation, physical force, threats of harm, and other) by gender ( Table 3 )

Across types of assault, incapacitation was the method of perpetration reported most frequently (> 50%) in both men and women. For both women and men, approximately two-thirds of all penetrative assaults and about half of sexualized touching and attempted penetrative assaults involved incapacitation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471.t003

Physical force was reported significantly more frequently by women than men (34.6% vs 12.7%) for any sexual assault. More specifically, compared to men, women were three times more likely to experience sexualized touching via physical force (32.1% vs. 10.0%), and six times more likely to experience penetrative assaults via physical force (33.3% vs 6.1%).

Lastly, a sizeable number of respondents reported verbal coercion (ranging from 21.0% to over 40.0% depending on type of assault). Criticism was cited by women at rates similar to physical force for both sexualized touching and penetrative assaults. Among men, both verbal coercion methods were cited most frequently after incapacitation for all three types of assault.

For GNC students, we examined rates of each perpetration method for only the composite variable any sexual assault (due to small numbers in any specific type of assault). Among those who experienced an assault, incapacitation was the most frequently mentioned method (50.0%), followed by criticism (40.0%).

Aim 3: Identify factors associated with sexual assault experiences

We examined the association between sexual assault (both any sexual assault [ Table 4 ] and each type of sexual assault [ Table 5 ]) and key demographic, sexual history and social activity factors. Results are stratified by gender (women/men).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471.t004

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471.t005

Race/Ethnicity.

For both women and men, the prevalence of any sexual assault was similar for all race/ethnicity groups compared to non-Hispanic White students with one exception. Asian students (women and men) were less likely to experience any sexual assault than non-Hispanic White students. For women only, differences emerged by type of assault. Asian women compared to non-Hispanic White women were less likely to experience penetrative assault (OR = 0.35, CI: 0.19–0.62), but not attempted penetrative assault (OR = 0.56, CI: 0.25–1.26), nor sexualized touching only (OR = 1.00, CI: 0.59–1.69). Black women were found to have increased odds of touching only incidents compared to non-Hispanic White women (OR = 1.99, CI: 1.05–3.74). There were no other significant racial or ethnic differences.

Economic precarity.

Women who often or always had difficulty paying for basic necessities had increased odds of any sexual assault; for men the trend was similar but it did not reach statistical significance. Considering penetrative assault specifically, both men and women who often or always had difficulty paying for basic necessities had increased risk (women OR = 2.24, CI: 1.23–4.09; men OR = 3.07, CI: 1.04–9.07) compared to those who never had difficulty.

Transfer student.

Women transfer students were less likely to experience any sexual assault than non-transfer students. Closer inspection of type of assault revealed that this protective effect was seen for sexualized touching only (OR = 0.34, CI: 0.15–0.80), but not for penetrative (OR = 0.60, CI: 0.34–1.08), nor attempted penetrative (OR = 1.03, CI: 0.48–2.21) assault. There were no significant differences between men who were transfer students and those who were not.

For women, those who identified as bisexual and those who identified as some other sexual identity besides heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual (includes people endorsing exclusively one or a combination of: Asexual, Pansexual, Queer, or a sexual orientation not listed), were more likely to experience any sexual assault than heterosexual students. For penetrative assault specifically, this increased risk was only present for individuals with some other sexual identity (OR = 2.11, CI: 1.20–3.73). For men, those who identified as homosexual were more likely to experience any sexual assault than heterosexual male students. For penetrative assault specifically, those who identified as homosexual, bisexual, or some other sexual identity all had substantially increased risk compared to those with a heterosexual identity (OR = 4.74, CI: 2.10–10.71; OR = 3.39, CI: 1.03–11.16; OR = 4.74, CI:1.10–20.48, respectively).

Information about the gender of the perpetrator for different gender and sexual orientation groups was available for a subset of incidents (336/997). Among these events, 98.4% (3/184) of the heterosexual women indicated the perpetrator was a man, while 97.1% (33/34) of the bisexual women, 75% (3/4) of the homosexual women, and 88.9% (24/27) of the other sexual identity women indicated it was a man. For men who were assaulted, 84.9% (45/53) of the heterosexual men reported the perpetrator was a woman, while 0 of the homosexual men said the perpetrator was a woman. Numbers for bisexual men and other sexual identity men were too small to report separately, but combined showed that 5/8 (63.0%) of bisexual and other sexual identity men said the perpetrator was a woman. Of the GNC students reporting on a most-significant event, 77.8% (7/9) reported that they were assaulted by a male perpetrator (the numbers are too small to further examine by sexual orientation).

Lived in US less than 5 years.

There was no association found between living in the US for less than 5 years and any sexual assault, nor any specific type of sexual assault.

Relationship status.

Among both women and men, students who had at least one hook-up were more likely to have experienced any sexual assault than students who were in only steady/exclusive relationships since starting college. Among women who had engaged in at least one hook-up, this increased risk held for each type of sexual assault (penetrative: OR = 5.03, CI = 2.91–8.68, attempted penetrative: OR = 4.43, CI = 1.83–10.8, sexualized touching only: OR = 3.26, CI = 1.74–6.09), while among men the increased risk was found for sexualized touching only (OR = 13.33, CI = 2.09–85.08), but could not be estimated (due to small numbers) for completed penetrative assault. Women who did not have any romantic or sexual relationship since CU/BC were found to be less likely to experience penetrative assault than women who had a steady/exclusive relationships only (OR = 0.05, CI: 0.01–0.31).

Fraternity/Sorority membership.

Although a relative minority of students participated in fraternities (24.1%) or sororities (18.2%), for both men and women, those who participated were more likely to experience any sexual assault than those who did not. Examination of type of assault revealed that the effect is driven primarily by sexualized touching only which is significant in both women (OR = 1.63, CI: 1.00–2.67) and men (OR = 2.40, CI: 1.25–4.63) and not significantly increased for penetrative nor attempted penetrative assault.

Risky or hazardous drinking.

For both men and women, individuals who met criteria on the AUDIT for risky or hazardous drinking were more likely to experience any sexual assault than those who did not. When examining each type of assault separately, for men this increased risk was only significant for penetrative assault (OR = 4.07, CI: 2.01–8.21). For women, the increased risk of assault held for each type of assault—penetrative (OR = 6.04, CI: 4.10–8.90), attempted (OR = 3.38, CI: 1.84–6.19) and touching (OR = 2.33, CI: 1.42–3.81). We also looked at one AUDIT item specifically on binge drinking (6 or more drinks on a single occasion). Individuals who reported binge drinking at least monthly were more likely to experience any sexual assault than those who did not. When examining each type of assault separately, for men this increased risk was only significant for penetrative assault (OR = 2.15, CI: 1.12–4.15). For women, this increased risk was significant for penetrative assault (OR = 3.12, CI: 2.09–4.65), attempted assault (OR = 2.28, CI: 1.20–4.33), and touching (OR = 2.42, CI:1.50–3.91).

Pre-college assault ( Table 5 ).

Among both women and men, those who experienced pre-college assault were more likely to experience any sexual assault while at CU/BC. The increased risk held for penetrative assault in both women (OR = 3.01, CI: 2.07–4.37) and men (OR = 2.44, CI: 1.03–5.76). In women, the increased risk also held for attempted penetrative, but not touching only, whereas in men, the increased risk held for touching only, but not attempted penetrative sex.

The SHIFT survey, with a population-representative sample, good response rate and behaviorally-specific questions, found that 22.0% of students reported a sexual assault since starting college, which confirms previous studies of 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 prevalence estimates with national samples and a range of types of schools [ 23 , 24 ]. However, a key finding is that focusing only on the “1 in 4/ 1 in 5” rate of any sexual assault obscures much of the nuance concerning types of sexual assault as well as the differential group risk, as prevalence rates were unevenly distributed across gender and several other social and demographic factors.

Similar to other studies [ 4 , 24 ], women had much higher rates of experiencing any type of sexual assault compared to men (28.0% vs 12.0%). Moreover, our data suggest a cumulative risk for sexual assault experiences over four years of college with over one in three women experiencing an assault by senior year. However, our data also suggest that freshman year, particularly for women, is when the greatest percentage experience an assault. This supports other work on freshman year as a particularly critical time for prevention efforts, otherwise known as the “red zone” effect for women [ 32 ].

Importantly, our study confirms that GNC students are at heightened risk for sexual assault [ 23 ]. They had the highest proportion of sexual assaults, with 38.0% reporting at least one incident, the majority of which involved unwanted/non-consensual sexualized touching. These data should be interpreted very cautiously given the small number of GNC students. However, increasingly studies suggest that transgender and other GNC students have sexual health needs that may not be targeted by traditional programming [ 57 ]; thus, a better understanding of pathways to vulnerability among these students is of high importance.

Similarly, students who identified as a sexual orientation other than heterosexual were at increased risk for experiencing any sexual assault, with bisexual women or women who identified as “other” and men who identified as any non-heterosexual category at increased risk. Similar to GNC students, understanding the specific social and sexual health needs of LGB students, particularly as it relates to reducing sexual assault risk is critical to prevention efforts [ 58 ]. Factors such as stigma and discrimination, lack of communication, substance use, as well as a potential lack of tailored prevention programs may play a role. To our knowledge, there are no evidence-based college sexual assault prevention programs targeting LGB and GNC students. Our data suggest that the LGB and GNC experiences are not uniform; more research should be done within each of these groups to understand the mechanisms behind their potentially unique risk factors.

Our data also suggest that the 20–25% rate of any sexual assault obscures variation in assault experiences. Sexualized touching accounted for the highest percentage of acts across gender groups, with over one-third of participants reporting only sexualized touching incidents. Rates of attempted and completed penetrative sexual assault were about half the rate of sexualized touching. This finding does not minimize the importance of addressing unacceptably high rates of attempted penetrative and penetrative assault (14%-15%), but it does suggest the importance of specificity in prevention efforts. For GNC students, for example, the risk of assault was primarily for sexualized touching with very few reporting attempted penetrative assault or penetrative assault during their time at CU/BC. These elevated rates of unwanted sexual touching may be a combination of GNC students’ focus on their gendered sexual boundaries–and thus potentially greater awareness of when advances are unwanted–at a developmental moment when they are building non-traditional gender identities, as well as these students’ social vulnerability. Further investigation is warranted.

Moreover, there was variation in methods of perpetration reported by survivors of sexual assault. Incapacitation was the most common method reported across all gender groups for each type of assault, and female and male students who reported risky or hazardous drinking were at increased risk for experiencing any sexual assault, particularly penetrative assault. Across campuses in the US, hazardous drinking is a national problem with substantive negative health outcomes, risk for sexual assault being one of them [ 2 , 39 , 59 ]. Our data underline the potential of programs and policies to reduce substance use and limit its harms as one element of comprehensive sexual assault prevention; we found few evidence-based interventions that address both binge drinking and sexual assault prevention. Of course, any work addressing substance use as a driver of vulnerability must do so in a way that does not replicate victim-blaming.

However, similar to other studies with broad foci, incapacitation was not the only method of perpetration reported. For women, physical force, particularly for penetrative sex, was the second most frequently endorsed method. Verbal coercion, including criticism, lying and threats to end the relationship or spread rumors, was also employed at rates similar to physical force for women, and was the second most frequently endorsed category for men and GNC students. Prevention programs, such as the bystander interventions which are the focus of efforts on many campuses [ 60 ], often focus on incapacitation or physical force. These interventions tend to highlight situations where survivors (typically women) are vulnerable because they are under the influence of substances. In SHIFT, verbal coercion is also shown to be a powerful driver of assault; however, it typically does not receive as much attention as rape, which is legally defined as penetration due to physical force or incapacitation. If a survivor is verbally coerced into providing affirmative consent, the incident could be considered within consent guidelines of “yes means yes” but it may have been unwanted by the survivor [ 61 , 62 ]. Assertiveness interventions and those that focus on verbal consent practices may be useful for addressing this form of assault.

We also found high rates of re-victimization. As others have found, pre-college sexual assault was a key predictor for experiencing assault at CU/BC [ 33 , 36 ]. However, we also found high rates of repeat victimization since starting at CU/BC with a median of 3 incidents per person reporting any sexual assault since starting CU/BC, and the highest risk of repeat victimization in women and GNC students. These data underline the importance of prevention efforts that include care for survivors to reduce the enhanced vulnerability that has been shown in other populations of assault survivors [ 36 ]. Future studies should also seek to disaggregate the relationship between type of victimization (sexualized touching, attempted penetrative assault, penetrative assault) and repeat victimization.

This study also identified a number of variables associated with sexual assault, some similar to previous studies and others different. As noted, gender was a key correlate. While prevention efforts should respond to the population-level burden by focusing on the needs of women and GNC students, it is important to note that men were also at risk of sexual assault. In our study, nearly 1 in 8 men reported a sexual assault experience, a rate also found in the Online College Social Life survey [ 56 ], but higher than other studies [ 63 , 64 ]. Few programs target men, and issues around masculinity and gender roles may make it difficult for men to consider or report what has happened to them as sexual assault. Importantly, this study found that men who were members of fraternities were at higher risk for experiencing assault (specifically unwanted/nonconsensual sexualized touching) than those who were not members. This is consistent with previous findings, including the Online College Social Life survey [ 56 ], but is of particular note because research has identified men in fraternities as more likely to be perpetrators [ 64 ], but few, if any, studies have looked at fraternity members’ vulnerability to sexual assault. Our data suggest a need for further examination of the cultural and organizational dimensions of Greek life that produce this heightened risk of being assaulted for both men and women. However, it is important to note that we did not examine a range of other social and extracurricular groups which may have produced risk as well and thus a more full examination of student undergraduate life is needed.

One other key factor associated with assault was participation in “hook ups”. Both male and female students who reported hooking up were more likely to report experiencing sexual assault, compared to students who only had exclusive or monogamous relationships and those who had no sexual relationships. The role of hooking up on college campuses has received much attention in the popular press and in a number of books [ 65 , 66 ], but little has been written about its connection to sexual assault, although several recent studies are in line with ours about its role as a risk factor for experiencing sexual assault on college campuses [ 40 , 41 ]. Multiple mechanisms may be at work: students who participate in hookups may be having sex with more people, and thus face greater risk of assault due to greater exposure to sex with a potential perpetrator, but students who participate in hookups may also face increased vulnerability because many hookups involve “drunk” sex, or because hookups by definition involve sexual interactions between people who are not in a long-term intimate relationship, and thus whose bodies and social cues maybe unfamiliar to each other. Alternatively some aspects of hook-ups may be more or less risky than others and therefore continued study of different dimensions of these more casual relationships that can refer to a wide-range of behaviors is necessary.

Several demographic characteristics were not for the most part associated with sexual assault. We did not find racial or ethnic differences in sexual assault risk with primarily one exception, Asian male and female students were at less risk overall compared to white students. We also did not find transfer students to be at greater risk; female transfer students were actually at lower risk, potentially due to less exposure time, particularly during freshman year. International student status as indicated by having been in the US<5 years was also not associated with increased risk. However, this study highlights the role of economic factors that have received limited attention in the literature. Little is known about how economic insecurity may drive vulnerability, but issues of power, privilege, and control of alcohol and space all require further examination.

There are several limitations to this study. Participants came from only two private schools that are interconnected in one city, and thus findings may not generalize to the rest of the US. There is a continued need for more national studies with different types of colleges and universities in urban and rural environments with more varied economic backgrounds in order to fully understand institutional and contextual differences. Although we had a response rate that was higher than many prior studies and our rates of sexual assault are consistent with prior studies [ 4 ], we cannot assess the extent to which selection bias may have occurred and therefore, our rates could be an underrepresentation or overrepresentation depending on who chose to participate. Although this concern is somewhat mitigated by findings that basic demographic data between respondents and the total population of students at two colleges suggest no significant differences, there may be some bias in factors we did not consider. Our present analysis has focused only on bivariate associations between risk factors and assault. While this analysis provides a valuable description of which groups are at elevated risk or not, future work will consider how combinations of risk factors at different levels may interact to increase risk. Critically, the analysis presented here reflects a focus on those who experience being assaulted, but in other work we look at the characteristics of perpetrators, both from those who reported perpetrating and from a subset of incidents that survey respondents described in depth, which provided more information about the perpetrator. A greater understanding of the characteristics and contexts of perpetration is without question vital for effective prevention. Finally, our data are cross sectional. Longitudinal studies with a comprehensive range of predictors are critical for identifying pathways of causality and targets for interventions.

Despite these limitations, this study confirms the unacceptably high rates of sexual assault and suggests diversity in experiences and methods of perpetration. A key conclusion is that a”one size fits all” approach that characterizes the extant literature on evidence-based prevention programs [ 67 ] may need to be altered to more effectively prevent sexual assault in college. Clearly different groups had differential risk for assault and may require much more targeted prevention efforts. Bystander interventions have shown promise in addressing risk in social situations, including fraternity parties and other settings with high alcohol use [ 68 , 69 ]. However, bystander interventions may not be sufficient for incidents occurring in non-party contexts where verbal coercion methods or physical force may be used without others around.

Creating effective and sustainable changes to campus culture requires engaging with a broad range of institutional stakeholders. SHIFT investigators are in the process of sharing selected findings with both student and institutional advisory boards, and an intensive collaborative process allows us to explore the implications of our results for a broad range of policies and programs, including both elements commonly considered as sexual assault prevention (consent education, bystander trainings), more general topics related to sexual orientation and verbal discussions of sex, and aspects of the institutional context across diverse domains including alcohol policy, mental health services, residential life policies, orientation planning, and the allocation of space across campus.

Overall, our findings argue for the potential of a systems-based [ 70 ] public health approach–one that recognizes the multiple interrelated factors that produce adverse outcomes, and perhaps particularly emphasizes gender and economic disparities and resulting power dynamics, widespread use of alcohol, attitudes about sexuality, and conversations about sex–to make inroads on an issue that stubbornly persists.

Supporting information

S1 table. number of incidents of sexual assault since enrolling at cu/bc, among individuals with at least one incident..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186471.s001

Acknowledgments

The authors thank our research participants; the Undergraduate Advisory Board; Columbia University’s Office of the President and Office of University Life, and the entire SHIFT team who contributed to the development and implementation of this ambitious effort.

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The Question of Race in Campus Sexual-Assault Cases

Is the system biased against men of color?

This is the final story in a three-part series examining how the rules governing sexual-assault adjudication have changed in recent years, and why some of those changes are problematic. Read the first installment here , and the second one here .

The archetypal image of the campus rapist is a rich, white fraternity athlete. The case of Brock Turner—the freshman swimmer at Stanford University convicted last year of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman after meeting her at a party, but sentenced to only six months in jail—reinforced this. Petula Dvorak, a Washington Post columnist, wrote, “The brilliant smile of a Stanford swimmer with Olympic dreams, the happy privileged face of a white college kid named Brock Turner … This is what a campus sexual predator looks like.”

Amy Ziering, the producer of The Hunting Ground , a 2015 campus-sexual-assault documentary, has said much the same thing. In a radio interview, she asserted that her movie exposed “privileged” well-off white men and challenged “dominant white male power.” But a close viewing of her film reveals a different reality. Her movie tells four main stories that are primarily focused on assault allegations. * In at least three of the cases, the accused is black.

How race plays into the issue of campus sexual assault is almost completely unacknowledged by the government. While the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which regulates how colleges respond to sexual assault, collects a lot of data on race, it does not require colleges and universities to document the race of the accused and accuser in sexual-assault complaints. An OCR investigator told me last year that people at the agency were aware of race as an issue in Title IX cases, but was concerned that it’s “not more of a concern. No one’s tracking it.”

Janet Halley, a professor at Harvard Law School and a self-described feminist, is one of the few people who have publicly addressed the role of race in campus sexual assault. Interracial assault allegations, she notes, are a category that bears particular scrutiny. In a 2015 Harvard Law Review article, “Trading the Megaphone for the Gavel in Title IX Enforcement,” she writes, “American racial history is laced with vendetta-like scandals in which black men are accused of sexually assaulting white women,” followed eventually by the revelation “that the accused men were not wrongdoers at all.” She writes that “morning-after remorse can make sex that seemed like a good idea at the time look really alarming in retrospect; and the general social disadvantage that black men continue to carry in our culture can make it easier for everyone in the adjudicative process to put the blame on them.” She has observed the phenomenon at her own university: “Case after Harvard case that has come to my attention, including several in which I have played some advocacy or adjudication role, has involved black male respondents.”

Another Ivy League law professor who has been involved in sexual-assault policy said to me of the issue of race, “Nobody wants to talk about it.” He said students are pushing their boundaries and that many hook up with a partner of a different ethnicity for the first time. But then, “if there is any kind of perceived injury—emotional or physical—when you cross racial lines, there’s likely to be more animus. It needs to be talked about and hasn’t been.” The professor requested anonymity, citing the difficulties of publicly discussing the subject.

Since there are no national statistics on how many young men of any given race are the subject of campus-sexual-assault complaints, we are left with anecdotes about men of color being accused and punished. There are many such anecdotes. In 2015, in The New Yorker , Jeannie Suk Gersen, a Harvard Law School professor, wrote that in general, the administrators and faculty members she’d spoken with who “routinely work on sexual-misconduct cases” said that “most of the complaints they see are against minorities.” For two years I have received a daily Google Alert on college sexual assault. It captures only those cases that make it into the news, and is not a comprehensive or statistically valid measure. But it is illuminating. Usually the reports don’t disclose race, but sometimes it is mentioned, and if the accused is named, it’s often possible to determine his race through photo searches or other online information. Black men make up only about 6 percent of college undergraduates. They are vastly overrepresented in the cases I’ve tracked.

The case involving Kwadwo Bonsu and R.M., described in Part I of this series, was an interracial encounter. Bonsu later filed a race- and gender-discrimination complaint with  OCR for the way his case was handled by the University of Massachusetts, although after reaching a settlement with the university, he withdrew the complaint.

As with the answers to so many questions involving individual campus encounters, it may ultimately be unknowable whether racial bias played any part in either the complaint against Bonsu or its adjudication. But as the definition of sexual assault used by colleges has become broader and blurrier, it certainly seems possible that unconscious biases might tip some women toward viewing a regretted encounter with a man of a different race as an assault. And as the standards for proving assault have been lowered, it seems likely that those same biases, coupled with the lack of resources common among minority students on campus, might systematically disadvantage men of color in adjudication, whether or not the encounter was interracial.

In several recent civil lawsuits against their schools, male students found responsible in campus tribunals for sexual misconduct have made the racial aspects of their experience explicit. These include cases involving Amherst College, in Massachusetts (which recently settled for undisclosed terms); Butler University, in Indiana; Drexel University, in Pennsylvania; Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania; the University of Findlay, in Ohio; the University of Pennsylvania; and William Paterson University, in New Jersey. Each suit says a student or students were subject to specious charges and in some cases abrupt expulsions because they were minorities.

In the University of Findlay case, Justin Browning and Alphonso Baity II, two black athletes, each had a separate sexual encounter with a white female student one Saturday night in September 2014. According to their federal suit, the encounters were consensual and the female student spent the night with Browning and bragged about it afterward to her friends. But a week and a half later, on a Wednesday, she filed a written complaint of sexual assault. That Friday, the two young men were expelled. The school then issued a campus-wide alert announcing their expulsion, and their names and photos were printed in the local paper. Findlay’s president, Katherine Fell, said that the university had dealt with “a serious incident of sexual assault on our campus, and we’ve done it with compassion, thorough research and effectiveness.”

Browning and Baity’s suit says that the university’s probe and disciplinary proceedings were a “sham” and that its actions were “motivated by race.” The suit notes that fewer than 2 percent of Findlay’s students are black men and that the only other student expelled in the prior two years for sexual misconduct was a black man accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. To date, Browning and Baity have been unable to resume their education at a four-year school. The university said in a statement that it conducted its investigation and appeal process “with integrity and fairness” and “will vigorously defend the process and our decision.” In a court filing, the university denied the allegations in the suit; the case is ongoing.

In November 2014, five 18-year-old black male freshmen at William Paterson University were arrested for allegedly holding a female student in a room and forcing her to perform sexual acts. In their suit, two of the students, Garrett Collick and Noah Williams, say they had consensual sex with the woman on the night in question—Collick says she initiated it with him—and that she had initiated sex with each of them on at least one previous occasion. Right after the arrests, the president of the university, Kathleen Waldron, released a statement in which she said, “I am angry and dismayed that this crime was committed on our campus and allegedly by students. My deepest concern is for the victim of this criminal act who has courageously stepped forward to take legal action and seek justice.” Collick and Williams were jailed for nine days. Ultimately, a grand jury, which decides whether there is sufficient evidence for formal charges—a very low evidentiary standard—declined to indict the men, and they were freed. About 50 William Paterson students showed up in court to support their classmates.

Collick and Williams, who were receiving state funding to attend college, remained barred from campus despite their exoneration. The local newspaper reported that after the decision, Waldron issued a statement saying the university “has its own student conduct process that is independent of the state’s legal proceedings.” This process ended with their expulsion. Michael Epstein, Collick and Williams’s attorney, told me that since losing their funding, the expelled students have been unable to continue their education; one of his clients had been working as a busboy. The former students are suing both the university and the school’s police department for, among other things, reckless conduct, negligence, and failure to provide the expected standard of due process and equal protection under the law. (The university denied the claims, and noted that in the past, its student judiciary process has been affirmed in New Jersey Appellate Court as adequate and appropriate under the law. Last November, a judge refused the school’s motion to dismiss the case in its entirety, allowing it to proceed on gender- but not race-discrimination grounds.)

Colgate University was recently investigated by the Office for Civil Rights for potential race discrimination, a Title VI violation, in its sexual-assault adjudication process. The university was cleared in April, on the grounds that the numbers did not allow OCR to conclude that race was a statistically significant factor in Colgate’s adjudications—in any given year the number of men of any race referred for formal hearings was in the single digits. (The investigation does not appear to have examined any individual cases or otherwise reach beyond this statistical analysis.) But the report did bring those statistics to light, a rarity. In the 2013–14 academic year, 4.2 percent of Colgate’s students were black. According to the university’s records, in that year black male students were accused of 50 percent of the sexual violations reported to the university, and they made up 40 percent of the students formally adjudicated.

During the three academic years from 2012–13 to 2014–15, black students were accused of 25 percent of the sexual misconduct reported to the university, and made up 21 percent of the students referred for formal hearings. Fifteen percent of the students found responsible for assault in those years were black. During that same three-year period, Asian students, who constituted a little more than 3 percent of Colgate’s student body in 2013, were more than 13 percent of the accused, 21 percent of those referred for hearings, and 23 percent of those found responsible. (The rest were white; no Hispanic students were accused.)

Melissa Kagle is one of three people who brought the race-discrimination complaint about Colgate to OCR. Kagle is a former assistant professor of educational studies at the school who, over the course of her last three years at the university, became a prominent critic of Colgate’s handling of sexual misconduct. (She left after being denied tenure in 2016 and now works at an education nonprofit.) Her co-complainants were minority students who’d been accused of assault or harassment, and to whom Kagle had become an informal adviser. Kagle viscerally understands the horror of rape because as a young woman she experienced it herself. But she told me that over the past several years, she’d become deeply concerned that in some cases fear of assault on campus was clouding people’s judgment and creating a reflex to presume guilt. In several cases that she’d come to know closely, at first by happenstance and then because minority men began to seek her out for assistance, “people believed something terrible happened when it hadn’t.”

Kagle believes that men of color—and especially foreign men of color, students from Africa and Asia—were uniquely defenseless when charged with sexual assault, typically lacking financial resources, a network of support, and an understanding of their rights. She told me that university administrators, in their zeal to address an issue that was a top priority of federal regulators, had gone after rumors and third-party reports of assaults, pressuring some female students to pursue complaints. I spoke with two women who made harassment complaints against a Rwandan student who was later expelled. One said she hadn’t wanted to make a complaint, but was told that it would help another woman feel safer; neither believed expulsion was the right outcome.

“We have laws and rules to make sure people’s rights aren’t violated. When you take away those protections, then you get what’s happening here,” Kagle said of Colgate. She also told me that she and her co-complainants are appealing OCR’s finding, noting that they believe the available numbers do demonstrate significant disparate treatment, and that in any case, the numbers alone do not tell the full story. Colgate declined to comment on the inquiry other than to say in a statement that it has “cooperated fully with the OCR investigation.”

What are we to make of these stories? It bears repeating that we do not know whether systematic racial bias is at work in campus-sexual-assault complaints and adjudications, or if it is, how strongly. Nor is it clear how changes made to the system in recent years might have affected the magnitude of that bias. And it is possible that racial bias affects the ability of minority complainants to get justice, too—a possibility that should be investigated. All we have today are anecdotes.

Even so, as Gersen noted in her New Yorker article, “if we have learned from the public reckoning with the racial impact of over-criminalization, mass incarceration, and law enforcement bias, we should heed our legacy of bias against black men in rape accusations.” As the Office for Civil Rights weighs changes to the system, the interplay of race with assault complaints and assault adjudication must be considered, and the racial composition of assault complaints and resolutions documented. It would be tragic—and unacceptable—if OCR, in a worthy effort to prevent sexual assault, has created a system that ends up unfairly depriving some black men of their access to higher education.

* The film's two narrators, who describe their efforts to seek safety and justice for women on campus, also describe their alleged assaults at some length, although this is not the primary focus of their stories.

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UTSA prioritizes the safety and wellbeing of our students. We are committed to fostering a safe and supportive environment for all students, offering resources, education and advocacy to combat sexual assault and dating violence. By raising awareness and promoting proactive measures, the university aims to empower students in navigating these challenging issues.

Sexual assault and dating violence are serious concerns that can have a lasting impact on one’s life. As you navigate your university experience, it’s important to approach new and existing interactions with care and mindfulness. Be aware of your surroundings, but more importantly, understand how any connection made, whether digital or in person, can play a significant role in your safety.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call 911.

Surviving sexual assault or dating violence can be traumatic and frightening. Every victim reacts differently . Know that you are not alone. We provide on-campus resources for prevention and trauma support. There are also external resources that can support you in various ways.

On-Campus Resources

Wellness 360 : UTSA provides counseling, survivor advocacy and recovery resources through individual and group counseling sessions, survivor advocacy services and support for trauma recovery.

PEACE Center : This on-campus resource focuses on P revention, E ducation, A dvocacy, C onsultation and E mpowerment, offering trauma-informed support and sexual violence screening for survivors. Services, which are confidential, focus on sexual violence, intimate partner violence, gender-based violence, sexual misconduct and harassment, and stalking.

Their Sexual Violence Prevention Screener is an online program that teaches students about healthy/unhealthy relationships, consent, different forms of sexual violence, strategies for interrupting sexual violence, and tools for survivors of sexual violence.

Green Dot Bystander Intervention : An initiative aimed at preventing sexual violence, stalking and other forms of personal violence through proactive student engagement and workshops.

Off-Campus Resources

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) : RAINN is the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization and partners with sexual assault service providers across the country. They implement programs to prevent sexual violence, help survivors and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.

National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-4673): RAINN created and operated the hotline to provide confidential support to victims 24/7 by phone and online .

National Domestic Violence Hotline : Provides essential tools and support to help survivors of domestic violence live their lives free of abuse. They have expert advocates who offer free, confidential, and compassionate support, crisis intervention information, education and referral services in over 200 languages. They are available 24/7 through phone (800-799-7233), chat or text (text “START” to 88788)

San Antonio Rape Crisis Center (210-349-7273): Offers 24-hour crisis intervention, free confidential counseling and case management.

Defining Sexual Assault and Dating Violence

What Is Sexual Assault?

The term sexual assault refers to sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the victim. Sexual assault in Texas is defined as:

• Non-consensual, unwanted sexual contact against another person involving penetration of sexual organs; includes being compelled to submit or participate by the use of physical force, violence or coercion
• Being compelled to submit or participate by threatening violence on them or another person, being unconscious, unaware or physically unable to resist
• Penetration of the mouth of another person by the sexual organ of the actor without that person’s consent

 Visit the RAINN website for a full definition of sexual assault and penalties in Texas.

What Is Dating Violence? Dating violence typically refers to any type of verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse that occurs between two people identified as being in a dating relationship; domestic violence is the same abuse occurring between two cohabitating people, irrespective of a dating dynamic; and more broadly, intimate partner/relationship violence is any abuse occurring between two people who are intimately involved. This type of violence is often the result of an abuser's desire to control his or her partner's thoughts and actions; it's about power, not passion. The abuser often uses a variety of abusive methods to gain that control, including emotional, verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

For teens and those new to dating and relationships, it’s can be difficult to identify controlling behaviors from caring behaviors. Consider this list of warning signs to identify unhealthy or abusive behaviors.

It’s not OK for a partner to:

• Demand details about how you spend your time
• Restrict contact with family or friends
• Criticize you or what’s important to you
• Control what you wear or what you look like.
• Touch you in public without permission
• Coerce or pressure you into physical activity
• Ignore or violate your physical boundaries
• Control your reproductive choices

Dating Safety Tips

Navigating the complexities of dating in the digital age requires vigilance and caution. Here are some essential safety tips from RAINN. Visit their website for an expanded list of safety tips .

• Use different photos for your dating profile
• Be wary of suspicious profiles
• Check out your potential date on social media
• Block and report suspicious users
• Wait to share personal information
• Do not respond to requests for financial help
• Video chat before you meet up in person
• Tell a trusted friend or family member about your date's details and consider tracking your whereabouts
• Meet in a public place
• Make sure you have independent transportation; don’t rely on your date for transportation
• Trust your instincts

Understanding Consent and Stalking

Consent is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. When you’re engaging in sexual activity, consent is about communication—and it should happen every time. Consent is the cornerstone of healthy relationships, requiring explicit, sober and conscious agreement from all parties involved. UTSA and the State of Texas legal definitions stress the inability to consent when under the age of 17 or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol.

When you’re engaging in sexual activity, consent is about communication . And it should happen every time for every type of activity. Consenting to one activity, one time, does not mean someone gives consent for other activities or for the same activity on other occasions.

You can withdraw consent at any point if you feel uncomfortable. One way to do this is to clearly communicate to your partner that you are no longer comfortable with this activity and wish to stop.

Visit RAINN to learn more about what consent looks like .

What is Stalking? Stalking is a pattern of repeated and unwanted attention, harassment, contact or any other course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear, according to the Department of Justice. Similar to crimes of sexual violence, stalking is about power and control. In the digital world, stalking can happen through online harassment or unauthorized tracking. Victims are advised to document incidents, assert boundaries and seek legal protection if necessary.

According to RAINN, stalking behavior can take many forms including:

• Making threats against someone, or that person's family or friends
• Non-consensual communication, such as repeated phone calls, emails, text messages and unwanted gifts
• Repeated physical or visual closeness, like waiting for someone to arrive at certain locations, following someone or watching someone from a distance
• Any other behavior used to contact, harass, track or threaten someone

Learn more about stalking on RAINN’s website .

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The University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development - for Texas, the nation and the world.

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Lithia Springs High School coach accused of sexual assault, sheriff’s office says

A TLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A high school teacher and track and field coach in Douglas County has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting at least one student, according to the county sheriff’s office.

Kerry Hood turned himself in on Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said. Two days earlier, a person told law enforcement that they were assaulted by Hood while they were a Lithia Springs High School student.

“Probable cause was established for the arrest of Kerry Hood for his actions regarding the sexual assault of a student,” a statement from the sheriff’s office said.

The reported incidents happened on school grounds and in other states, according to the sheriff’s office.

“This is an incident where a person in a supervisory capacity has taken advantage of a student under their charge,” the sheriff’s office said.

The district told Atlanta News First that he is no longer an employee.

In a statement, a spokesperson with the DeKalb County School District said Hood was “previously offered the head football coach position at Arabia Mountain High School,” but the district is aware of the allegations against Hood and it “does not intend to proceed” with employing him.

The spokesperson said the district “takes allegations of inappropriate or unlawful behavior very seriously and prioritizes students’ safety and well-being above all else.”

Deputies are still investigating the case.

This is a developing story. Check back with Atlanta News First as we learn more.

McMaster professor was fired over ‘exploitative’ sexual relations with students, university says

The McMaster University campus, in Hamilton, Ont., on July 24, 2018. Glenn Lowson/The Globe and Mail

McMaster University has fired a psychology professor who it says had sexual relations with a number of students, including one who was vulnerable and relying on him for support.

The university says a committee that reviewed Scott Watter’s behaviour described it as “unethical, inappropriate and in some instances exploitative,” finding that his removal was the “only reasonable outcome.”

Watter was arrested in 2020 and later acquitted by a judge of the alleged sexual assault of a graduate student, accusations that led the university to conduct its own review that also led to the suspension of two other faculty members.

The committee found Watter pursued a sexual relationship with a graduate student who he knew had suicidal thoughts and whose self-harm became more severe and frequent during their relationship, accusing him of exploiting her for his personal benefit.

It also found he had sexual relations with two students he met on a website marketed as a platform for so-called “sugar daddies” and then hired one of them without first disclosing the relationship.

The committee’s summary report notes Watter claimed he dealt with power imbalance issues in the relationships, but the committee found it was more likely his attempts to reassure each student who expressed doubts was manipulative.

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The Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Violence

The Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Violence provide support and referral for student survivors of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and stalking at Moravian University and Lancaster Theological Seminary. The Advocate team consists male and female volunteer faculty and staff members. Advocates can be reached 24 hours a day during the academic year by calling or texting  484-764-9242 .  Between May 6th and August 19th Moravian University Advocates are not on-call.  During this time, please call the Crime Victims Council's 24 hour advocate hotline at 610-437-6611 for advocacy services.

Advocates are available to:

• Listen and support you
• Answer questions and provide information
• Accompany you to medical treatment
• Assist you with academic needs
• Explain campus and criminal reporting and resolution options

Advocates for 2023-2024 Academic Year

• Kelly Anthony  - Athletics
• Anize Appel  - Center for Global Education
• Jesse Baumann  - Athletics
• Allison Bloom  - Sociology & Anthropology Department
• Alissa Butler - Nursing Department
• Jacqueline Gannon - Nursing Department
• Taylor Grube  - Nursing Department
• Aleena Hay - Psychology Department
• John Mikovits  - Nursing Department
• Kayti Protos  - Behavioral Health & Community Department
• Tracy Urban  - Disability & Accommodation Services
• Maryfrances Watchous - Nursing Department
• Jeff Ykoruk  - Athletics
• Stacey Zaremba  - Psychology Department

Advocate Response Coordinator

• Aileen Thompson  - Community Support Coordinator at the Counseling Center

Moravian University Resources

• The ADVOCATES for Survivors of Sexual Violence 484.764.9242 (24 Hours)
• Campus Police 610.861.1421
• Counseling Center 610.861.1510
• Health Center 610.861.1567
• Spirituality & Inclusion 610.861.1583
• Student Affairs 610.861.1503
• Title IX Coordinator 610.861.1529

Off Campus Resources

• Crime Victims Council (CVC) - www.cvclv.org
• NOVUS ACS -  novusacs.com
• Pennsylvania Council Against Rape (PCAR) - www.pcar.org
• Turning Point - www.turningpointlv.org

Support resources are outlined in detail and available at  moravian.edu/titleix/resources