COLUMBUS – A new survey finds that a quarter of undergraduate women at more than two dozen universities, including Ohio State and Case Western Reserve in Ohio, say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at some point during their college career.
More than 150,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students at the Association of American Universities’ member schools participated in a survey that comes at a time of heightened public awareness and increased scrutiny of what schools are doing to combat sexual assault on campus.
“Campuses must be safe places to learn and grow. Ohio State’s participation in this survey offers valuable insights from our students as the university provides leadership on this national issue,” said university President Michael Drake.
University officials last week announced Buckeyes ACT, part of a plan to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct on campus.
At OSU, 24 percent of the female undergrads who responded to the survey reported experiencing “incidences of nonconsensual sexual contact by physical force, threats of physical force, or incapacitation, slightly higher than the national rate of 23 percent, according to the report.
Nearly 11 percent of the women reported they had been raped, the vast majority of them (nearly 70 percent) by someone they knew.
A little more than 5 percent of men at Ohio State and nationally reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact involving force Female undergraduate student respondents who reported being victims of nonconsensual penetration involving force or incapacitation.
When asked if they believed that a report of a sexual assault would be taken seriously by the university, more than 63 percent, at Ohio State and nationally, said they did, and 55 percent of OSU students said they thought the safety of those reporting incidents would be protected by university officials.
The results were generally in line with past surveys on sexual assault and misconduct on college campuses — and confirmed that alcohol and drugs are important risk factors.
AAU President Hunter Rawlings says university leaders hope the results will help policymakers as they develop legislative and administrative responses to combat sexual assault on college campuses.