In the wake of intense media scrutiny and passionate campus discussion of sexual assault, The Dartmouth polled the College’s undergraduates on topics related to sexual violence, finding that student opinion is sharply divided over Dartmouth’s responses to reports of sexual assault yet largely united in support of the proposed sexual assault policy. Self-identified men and women, the survey found, report they hold different views of sexual assault frequency, College response procedures and the Greek system’s connection to sexual assault.Sixty-two percent said they knew someone who had been sexually assaulted.
The poll was conducted online between April 11 and 27, garnering 873 responses, about evenly distributed between class years. According to government professor Yusaku Horiuchi, who researches and teaches statistical methods in politics, the results do not necessarily represent the student body. The sampling was not random, he said, because students elected to participate in the survey. Horiuchi added that because of the survey’s large sample size, one might be able to assume that the survey’s respondents reflect the true population.
Results also have tight confidence intervals, and statistical analysis for comparisons between variables indicate high degrees of correlation, even though causation cannot be proven.
The survey’s timing follows several events tied to sexual violence, including the March trial of Parker Gilbert ’16, found not guilty of rape, the Parkhurst Hall sit-in, an advertisement campaign targetting the College’s handling of sexual assault and College President Phil Hanlon’s “Call To Action” distributed via email last month.
Results indicate that sexual assault remains a salient and hotly-contested issue at the College.
A majority of respondents from every class besides the Class of 2017 said they knew someone who was sexually assaulted on campus, with numbers ranging from 59 percent of sophomores to 74 percent of seniors. Among the Class of 2017, 43 percent said they knew someone who had been sexually assaulted. These results mirrored respondents’ opinions of how often sexual assault occurs. Whereas 16 percent of freshmen thought that assault occurred “frequently,” twice as many seniors thought the same.
In a similar survey conducted at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013, only 31 percent of undergraduates said they knew someone who was sexually assaulted while a student at the institution.
Twenty percent of women are sexually assaulted while at college, according to “Not Alone,” a White House report on sexual assault on college campuses that cites 2007 research published in the Journal of American College Health.
“The rates for sexual violence among students [are] high,” Sandra Park, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberty Union’s Women’s Rights Project, said. “In reality, probably almost everybody knows someone who was sexually assaulted.”
Park added that Dartmouth’s small class size might result in students knowing more about their peers.
Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson said she has no reason to believe that the number of sexual assaults is higher at Dartmouth than at other institutions.
From a list of 12 different reasons ranging from “fear of retaliation” to “victim does not want to recall the experience,” 60 percent of students selected “shame or embarrassment” as one of the top three reasons for which students may not report sexual violence. This selection was followed by 35 percent choosing “victim feels responsible for what happened” and 34 percent for “unsure whether sexual assault occurred.”
The results suggest that many students think the precise criteria for what constitutes sexual assault remains nebulous.
Holli Weed ’14, who has worked extensively with sexual assault issues on campus, qualified the aforementioned results by citing the problematic nature of the label “sexual assault,” adding that Dartmouth students often forget to include behaviors like groping and heavy petting under its definition.
More open communication about sex and sexuality could mitigate cultural taboos and make talking about sexual violence less difficult for survivors, former Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault vice president Gus Ruiz Llopiz ’14 said.
“The first step [toward encouraging survivors to report their assault] is to work within a system of empowerment, a system that will allow survivors to take the process of reporting and healing into their own hands,” he said.
About 53 percent of respondents identified as women, 46 percent as men and 1 percent as gender-nonconforming. Although results are fairly consistent over class years, they are polarized by genders. Whereas only 27 percent of self-identifying men expressed disapproval for how the College responds to sexual assault reports, 44 percent of women — a significant plurality — indicated disapproval. Four out of the seven gender-nonconforming respondents signalled disapproval.
Twenty-nine percent of women answered that sexual assault happens “frequently,” while only 16 percent of men responded the same way. By the same token, 36 percent of men and 17 percent of women said that sexual assault happened “rarely.”
Seventy percent of women responded that they know a victim, as opposed to 52 percent of men. Six of the seven gender-nonconforming respondents said that they know a victim.
In response to a question asking how often claims of sexual assault are false, 21 percent of male respondents indicated “often” or “all of the time.” Seven percent of women selected the same choices. All gender-nonconforming respondents indicated that false claims are “rarely” made.
When asked about the connection between Greek life and sexual assault, more women indicated a correlation than men. Whereas 47 percent of men believed that Greek life had “some positive correlation” or “a strong positive correlation” with the frequency of sexual assault, 65 percent of women believed the same. About half of the male and female respondents identified as Greek-affiliated.
The six respondents who did not identify as male or female and responded to the question said they thought that the Greek system had a strong positive or some positive correlation with sexual assault frequency. Two of the respondents identified as Greek-affiliated.
A large percentage of affiliated students and unaffiliated students indicated that they believe that the Greek system is linked with sexual assault. 47 percent of affiliated students said there is “some positive” or a “strong positive” correlation between the Greek system and sexual assault, as opposed to 68 percent of unaffiliated students.
Greek affiliation did not have a major influence on respondents’ approval of the College’s handling of sexual assault reports. Forty-three percent of affiliated students said Dartmouth handles sexual assault “better” or “much better” than most other schools, compared with 34 percent of unaffiliated students. Forty-six percent of affiliated students and 49 percent of unaffiliated students said Dartmouth handles sexual assault “neither better nor worse” than most other schools, while 11 percent of affiliated students and 17 percent of unaffiliated students answered either “worse” or “much worse.”
Respondents who know someone who was assaulted on campus were over five times as likely to express disapproval of how the College handles sexual assault reports.
At an invitation-only summit in April, Hanlon highlighted the creation of the Dartmouth Bystander Initiative and the new sexual assault policy proposal as important steps in combating sexual violence.
“This is progress, great progress, but we must not confuse it with success,” he said at the summit.
Members of Greek organizations have the option of undergoing two one-hour DBI sessions or two one-hour Movement Against Violence sessions. A full DBI training session lasts six hours.
Only 22 percent of respondents said that most Dartmouth students either probably or definitely would spend six hours at a DBI training session.
Student body president Casey Dennis ’15 said he hopes to see participation become a standard across the student body, but Dennis and Assembly vice president Frank Cunningham ’16 both acknowledged that many students may not have the time to participate in DBI training. Dennis said collaboration within the Greek system via individual members, the Inter-Fraternity Council and Greek Leadership Council could facilitate training.
Both Dennis and Cunningham emphasized that students must drive the initiative for it to be successful.
Two thirds of survey respondents said they thought sexual assault occurs with equal frequency at the College and peer institutions. Eighteen percent of students said sexual assault occurs much more or more frequently at Dartmouth.
While about 14 percent indicated that the College is worse or much worse at addressing these issues than peer institutions, about 39 percent of students indicated that Dartmouth is better or much better at combating sexual assault than its peers. Even though more respondents said the College is comparatively better, the high number of students expressing disapproval of Dartmouth’s handling of sexual assault reports indicates that the student body recognizes existing imperfections.
Recently, the College proposed a new sexual assault policy, which tasks an external investigator with preparing a report about sexual misconduct complaints and mandates expulsion for certain forms of sexual misconduct.
Nearly all students — 88 percent — supported this clause of the proposed policy, with 56 percent indicating strong agreement.
Johnson said the new sexual assault policy is designed to create a “climate of reporting,” and will go into effect starting summer 2014.
Sara McGahan and Sera Kwon contributed reporting.
