AAUW Analysis Finds College Women May Not Be Comfortable Reporting Rapes

An analysis of data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education under the Cleary Act by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) raising some serious questions about the federal reporting system.

The analysis found that 91 percent of all 11,000 college and university campuses in the United States did not report any incident of rape during 2014. Of the 4,000 primary college and university campuses with 250 or more students, 76 percent reported no incident of rape.

Only about 10 percent of college and university campuses reported incidents of domestic violence, dating violence, or stalking.

The AAUW notes that “campuses that reported one type of sexual violence often disclosed reports of other types. This suggests that some schools have built the necessary systems to welcome reports, support survivors, and disclose accurate statistics – and others do not. The extraordinary high number of zeros suggests students may not feel comfortable coming forward to report such crimes at some of these schools.”

The analysis went on to conclude that “when campuses report zero incidents of rape, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking, it simply does not square with research, campus climate surveys, and widespread  experiences reported by students.”