Fox NY ran a report last night on campus sexual assault. Sarah, a rape survivor, tells her story in the video below (trigger warning).

I’m fairly pleased with how Fox framed the story. Sarah’s strength as a survivor willing to speak and help others is showcased, and her behavior is never questioned (even though she admits to drinking the night of the rape). It’s a story that is reflective of many campus rapes: he was a friend, they knew each other, they had been drinking, she thought she could trust him. The reporter, for her part, emphasizes the frequency of such assaults and the seriousness with which they deserve to be treated. Also interviewed were representatives from Montclair State University (not the school where this particular rape occurred), a school that, as Nora reported, appears to have a model comphrensive Sexual Assault Response Team.

The Fox report seems to have been sparked by survey results recently released by the Campus Tolerance Foundation. The full set of survey results and the summary can be found here. The survey is—and the CTF opendly admits this—not “scientific.” 2,612 undergraduates on 10 campuses were surveyed on facebook about violence, harassment, and bias on campus. The results in terms of sexual assault are mostly in-line with general statistics on campus assault:

B. Female students are at risk of sexual harassment, assault and date rape
PROOF: 33% of women were victims of serious sexual harassment – forced sex, attempts to force sex, or attempts to force kissing or fondling – or personally know someone who was. Things are worst at Harvard (45%), GWU (43%), and OSU (42%); things are better at the U. of Washington (23%) and Barnard and Texas A & M (both 24%). [See Table 2]

PROOF: 62% of women on the 10 campuses report that they have been victims of broader sexual harassment or personally know someone who has been. Broader sexual harassment includes remarks that insult because of gender and remarks that are sexually offensive, as well as the more serious forms of sexual harassment defined above. Things are worst at GWU (73%), U. of Nebraska (69%) and OSU (66%); they are better at Barnard (52%).

While I’m not entirely comfortable with the claims of “PROOF” due to the self-selecting nature and general methodology and language of the survey, [and for that matter I have questions about the use of promoting statistics that are going to be very vulnerable to criticism by those who would have you believe that there is no campus rape crisis] it is quite telling that this many women openly admitted to being harassed and assaulted. And it does ring true in terms of everything we do know about college sexual assault. If this gets the subject some more attention, then that’s a good thing.

[Don't forget to vote for SAFER so we can continue our work fighting campus sexual assault]

Meant to post on this article “OSU among big-campus leaders in reported crime” a while ago, and then lost the link. But I found it again, and better late than never, right?

In 2006, Ohio State reported the most forcible sex crimes among large colleges. Bad idea to go there, right? Not necessarily. OSU’s numbers probably just mean they are doing a better job of getting people to report sexual offenses, and that is actually a marker of a campus that is actively trying to keep their students safer.

From the article:

OSU officials attribute the high numbers to an anonymous reporting policy implemented a few years ago and the practice of soliciting information from a broad range of faculty and staff. And experts caution that high crime numbers don’t necessarily mean a campus is unsafe.

…

High crime statistics aren’t always an indicator that one college is more dangerous than another, says Alison Kiss, of Security on Campus, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit dedicated to safe campuses. Instead, she said, it’s more likely that the college has created an environment in which students are encouraged to report crime.

Kiss said parents and students actually should be more concerned when colleges report little or no crime, especially when it comes to sexual assaults.

“That raises flags,” she said. “Because, we know that one in four college women is sexually assaulted.”

…

Safety advocates say families need to dig deeper into the college’s policies and services such as its alcohol and drug abuse policy or sexual assault services. It also means asking questions about the types of prevention programs available and looking for signs of good security: electronic key card systems and video surveillance in public areas.

We provide a list of questions parents and students should ask when choosing a college, as thousands will be in the next few months, and I really want to reiterate that just seeing low numbers is not a good sign if the college can’t prove that those low numbers come from a great sexual assault prevention program.