It’s been three years since Rolling Stone published its now discredited story called A Rape on Campus. What followed was a good deal of soul searching and discussion at the University of Virginia, and a new survey suggests that may have had a positive impact.
The university sent surveys to 5,000 undergraduates who were randomly selected. Just over half responded. Nearly 12 percent of female students and 2.3 percent of males said they were victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual touching when they were incapacitated or subject to physical force. Those numbers were down about one percentage point from a survey last year.
Women are four times more likely to report these incidents than men. When asked why they didn’t report, just over half of all students who were assaulted said the incident wasn’t serious enough to warrant reporting and 44% didn’t want to get the offender – usually a friend or acquaintance – in trouble.
Nearly three quarters of survey respondents thought the university would take a complaint seriously up 13 percentage points from last year. Well over half thought a fair investigation would follow, and 45% thought some action would be taken against the offender by the university – nearly double what students said last year.
In the 2015-2016 academic year, one UVA student was expelled for sexual assault or harassment. This year the number was eight.
The report also looked at what happened with students in an intimate relationship and found nearly 5% had been the victim of violence or threats – usually multiple times. Most commonly they said their partners had tried to control them.
