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Reports Of Sex Assault On College Campuses Climb As More Victims Come Forward
By Kathleen Megan
Students listen to speakers talk about their experiences during a sexual assault awareness rally on UConn's campus in September 2011. (Bettina Hansen / Hartford Courant)
Reports of sexual assault climbed last year on many Connecticut college campuses, an increase that college officials and experts attributed to heightened awareness and expanded educational programs that make it easier for victims to come forward.
Of 11 Connecticut colleges and universities, eight reported increases in sexual assaults, with particularly sizable jumps at the University of Connecticut, Trinity College and Wesleyan University. Three colleges reported declines.
At UConn, where the number of reported sexual assaults climbed from 13 in 2012 to 25 in 2013, Police Chief Barbara O'Connor said: "I think that statistic is going to be rising across the country as more attention is brought to this particular crime."
"We've done a good job not just at UConn, but as a nation, discussing this crime," O'Connor continued.
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"With increased awareness, you anticipate increased reporting. We know that next year, that number will be even higher, most likely."
Concern about sexual assault — preventing it and how to provide help to those who have been raped or assaulted — has swept college campuses in recent years with a wave of federal complaints and lawsuits filed by students, including action taken against UConn, Yale and Wesleyan.
Experts say that sexual assault on college campuses is a crime that is vastly underreported. Estimates are that one in four to one in five women will be sexually assaulted while in college.
From the White House to Congress to Connecticut's General Assembly, steps have been taken to reduce the problem and to encourage victims to report sexual assault.
In Connecticut, colleges and universities have introduced ways to educate students about sexual assault and to ensure that victims know where and how to report it and have access to needed health care and emotional support as well as information about their legal options.
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Breaking The Culture Of Silence
"It's never good news when you see numbers going up because it means people are being victimized," said Alison Kiss, director of the Clery Center for Security On Campus, a nonprofit that works to reduce crime on campus and assists colleges as they work to comply with the federal Clery Act.
But, she said, a higher number does mean that students are understanding their rights and feeling comfortable about coming forward and reporting.
"When I see higher numbers, that leads me to believe that the campus is talking about this, that they have broken down the culture of silence," Kiss said.
The Clery Act, passed in 1990, requires colleges to release the numbers of crimes reported, including sexual assault. The schools must complete those reports and distribute them to the college community by Oct. 1 and must provide the numbers to the U.S. Department of Education. The federal agency will post the numbers in December.
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According to UConn's Clery statistics, the 25 instances of "forcible" sexual offenses reported included 18 incidents reported as rape and seven reported as "fondling."
At Trinity College, the number of reported "forcible" sexual offenses climbed from 8 in 2012 to 25 in 2013.
Fred Alford, Trinity's dean of students, said in an email that he believes the "increase in the number of reported sex offense incidents shows progress toward creating a safer and more responsive environment at Trinity for students to disclose incidents."
Alford said that one of the college's main goals has been to ensure that students come forward if they are a victim of sexual misconduct. He said the college has also emphasized the importance of bystanders stepping in to help if they see a problem developing.
"We have seen an increase in third-party reports, which make up a sizable portion of the reporting numbers," Alford said. "An increase in the number of reported incidents is, we believe, an indication that these efforts are successfully taking hold."
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At Wesleyan University, reports of sexual assault went from seven in 2011 to one in 2012, then up to 17 in 2013. The number is set to go higher still in 2014, with 23 reports recorded as of August 2014, a university report said.
Antonio Farias, Wesleyan's vice president for equity and inclusion, addressed the increase in reports in a statement made during a recent meeting with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal: "We all wish for a campus free of sexual assault, but to the extent that assaults do occur, we want them to be reported. We've made progress in this area, improving our reporting mechanisms and enhancing the structures in place for survivor support."
Other colleges with slight increases in reports from 2012 to 2013, included the University of Hartford (from 2 to 5); the University of New Haven (from 3 to 4); Central Connecticut State University (from 2 to 5); Southern Connecticut State University (5 to 6) and Quinnipiac University (1 to 4).
Connecticut College's number dropped from 12 in 2012 to nine in 2013, while Yale's went down from 16 in 2012 to 12 in 2013, as did Eastern Connecticut State University's figures, from 4 in 2012 to 3 in 2013.
Many advocates for victims see an increase in reporting as a positive development. Colby Bruno, senior legal counsel with the Victim Rights Law Center in Boston, said she thinks the increase at UConn — from 13 to 25 — is "a progressive jump. They don't have to jump to 50 in order to be better, so I think UConn is doing better."
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She said it could be that UConn is doing a better job providing education and training on the subject or it could be that when some students publicize their own cases, other victims become more comfortable reporting.
Still, she said, 25 is "exceedingly" low for such a large school. "It's definitely a step in the right direction, but by no means are we done."
Legal Action Against Yale, UConn
The recent wave of Title IX complaints related to sexual misconduct began several years ago, with one of the earliest filed by 16 Yale students in March 2011, alleging that a sexually hostile environment existed on campus and that the university had not responded adequately to the situation.
The complaint, filed with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, was sparked by a much-publicized incident in October 2010 when male fraternity pledges stood outside the university's women's center and chanted sexually aggressive obscenities. The federal agency reached an agreement with Yale on the complaint in 2012.
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It was a year ago this month that seven former or current UConn students filed a federal Title IX complaint against the university, alleging that it failed to protect them from sexual assault on campus and to respond adequately after they reported the assaults.
Several of those students followed up by filing a federal lawsuit in November 2013, charging that the university mishandled their cases when they were raped or sexually assaulted. UConn agreed to a $1.28 million settlement of that case in July.
At Wesleyan, two high-profile lawsuits were filed against the school in recent years alleging rapes at fraternity houses.
The UConn case prompted state legislators to hold a lengthy and emotional public hearing on campus sexual assault last winter and to pass a bill that strengthened reporting requirements and instituted new policies to help victims.
Stephanie Reitz, spokeswoman for UConn, said that with all the public awareness on the subject in the past year, she expects to see more reports from students who were sexually assaulted earlier in their college career but didn't come forward then.
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"There may be students who are near the end of their college careers who now want to talk about something in the beginning of their college years," Reitz said. "We want to assure them all of the services will be available to them
Those steps include increased education for all members of the university community; the formation of an investigations team that will focus exclusively on complaints of sexual violence or harassment; and the creation of a special victims unit within the UConn Police Department that will respond to all reports of sexual violence.
In her "state of the university" speech earlier this month, UConn President Susan Herbst said many of the changes are designed to increase the reporting of sexual assaults.
"This does not necessarily mean that sexual assaults are on the rise," Herbst said, "rather, it means that reporting of this historically underreported crime is increasing. This is essential to the continuing effort to bring this issue out of the shadows and into the light."
At other Connecticut colleges and universities where reports have declined or not changed much, college officials said they expect those numbers could go up in coming years.
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At Eastern, Police Chief Jeffrey Garewski, where the number of reports of sexual assault declined by one to 3 in 2013, said that with all the conversation and headlines about the issue in the past year, "I'm interested to see what '14 is going to bring. … You would think the statistics would go up."
Seann Kalagher, Quinnipiac's associate dean of student affairs, said he's seen a change in students this year with new policies and programs at the university and also the media attention to the topic.
"I think our students are more apt to discuss it," he said. "They respond very openly about it. They have a bigger base of knowledge about it then even a year ago."
He said he hopes that will make students more likely to report sexual assault should it occur. Referring to the single report at the university in 2012, Kalagher said, "I don't think any of us believe that," he said. "We want to have a more accurate picture."
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