Nearly one in three female Harvard seniors say they’ve experienced unwanted sexual contact
By the time they graduated, nearly one in three Harvard women said they had an unwanted sexual experience.
The disheartening statistic is one of many released Monday as part of the Association of American Universities “Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault.’’ Harvard was one of 28 schools to participate.
Of the 60 percent of female seniors who responded, 31 percent said they had experienced some form of “nonconsensual sexual contact’’ since starting at Harvard. More than half said that contact was unwanted or attempted penetration, or, in other words, rape.
The survey also asked students to report assaults that occured in the 2014-2015 school year. The highest rates were among Harvard undergraduates. But the report showed that, of the respondents in the 10 graduate or professional programs, the highest rates of assault were in the divinity school.
Most assaults involved alcohol and occured in campus dorms, according to the report. And, as was consistent with the overall findings, most Harvard students didn’t report their assaults.
That could be because they don’t have faith in the system. In the survey, 61 percent of all students said they believed their reports would be taken seriously by campus officials. But a look at the gender breakdown tells a different story. Less than half of female undergraduates—who make up the largest victim demographic—believe their reports would be taken seriously. Further, only 16 percent of female undergraduates think their school would take action against their offender.
The survey also addressed sexual harassment. Nearly 73 percent of undergraduate women said they’ve been sexually harassed during their time at Harvard, while the national average for women in the same demographic is 62 percent.
In a letter to the Harvard community, the university’s president Drew Faust said she found the survey results distressing, but that, in addition to holding a meeting to discuss the results Monday night, she’s called on the deans of each school to develop specific plans for action to prevent further assaults.
Harvard is one of 106 colleges being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights regarding its handling of sexual assault cases. In December, the office said Harvard Law School failed to provide a “prompt and equitable response to complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault,’’ and was therefore in violation with Title IX policy.
A separate investigation into the handlings of undergraduate sexual assault cases is still ongoing. In the meantime, Harvard’s sexual assault task force will put together a final report with further recommendations to be submitted by January 2016.
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