Universities and colleges may be underreporting the number of sexual assaults, domestic violence and stalking incidents on campus, a large group consisting of 31 United States Senators state in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch & Education Secretary John King, Jr.
- One year ago, Amendments Congress passed in the 2013 Violence Against Women Act mandated that schools track and disclosed the number of domestic violence and stalking incidents on campus
- Senators noted that only 9% of about 11,000 schools reported any occurrence of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking
- The reports show that there were no incidents of sexual assault on 9-in-10 campuses that directly conflict with research that shows around 1-in-5 female students will experience sexual assault by the time they graduate college
Photo: NY Times - Colleges publicizing that zero attacks took place strongly suggests “that schools are either not taking the reporting obligation seriously or are not creating an environment where students feel comfortable coming forward to report, and are vasty underreporting these crimes,” the letter states
- College of William & Mary underreported sexual assault incidents and a hate crime assault, left out a drug and alcohol arrests from its statistics and had other inaccurate data, according to reports in 2015
- 91% of colleges are reporting zero assaults, which seems a bit troubling and hard to believe
- Georgetown University classified an event as “Burglary-No Force” after someone broke into a woman’s room and forcibly fondled her while she slept
