Editorial: What the Sexual Assault Statistics Don’t Tell You

With increased media attention on the issue of college sexual assault, the federal government has devoted more of its time and energy to raising awareness and preventing what is debatably called a “nationwide epidemic” by various student and professional publications.

Students on campus have spearheaded efforts to take part in the national movement. Last week, Fordham participated in the White House’s third annual It’s On Us Week of Action campaign, hosting its own series of events to raise awareness about sexual assault. Students attended self-care workshops, participated in a “clothesline project” in which they designed t-shirts supporting sexual assault survivors and spoke out in public about their own experiences with sexual violence.

Self-reported studies on student experiences of sexual violence indicate that the university is relatively safe. The chance of encountering sexual violence at Fordham is lower than 10 percent, according to last year’s sexual misconduct campus climate survey. The findings also revealed that 92 percent of traditional undergraduates and 97 percent of graduate and professional students reported that they have not been subjected to physical force or threats of harm involving sexual contact.

However, sexual assault survivors still struggle with various factors that prevent them from reporting acts of violence, including stigma, fear of retaliation and shock. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), only 20 percent of female student sexual assault victims report to law enforcement and two to 10 percent of the reports are false. Men are less likely than women to report sexual assault, which can further skew data.

Reporting on sexual assault has proven to be a challenge across the board. As an increase in reports of assault year after year do not necessarily indicate an increase in campus assaults, sexual assault is a historically underreported crime. Likewise, a decrease in reporting of assaults does not necessarily indicate that a college campus is experiencing fewer of these crimes.

While Fordham has an extensive policy regarding sexual offenses and many resources including Campus Assault and Relationship Education (CARE) and Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS), students may still feel pressure not to report incidents of sexual assault which can skew datasets about the prevalence of sexual violence on campus.

While we support students reporting incidents of sexual assault on campus, we advise the student body to be wary of jumping to conclusions about campus safety based on the numbers. Based on the above factors, it is impossible to determine whether more students are assaulted.

One sexual assault is too many on Fordham’s campus.

However, it is just as important to create a climate in which students feel comfortable reporting sexual violence while reducing the number of sexual assaults on campus.