What is sexual assault?
Sexual assault is any unwanted, nonconsensual sexual contact including kissing, groping, penetration or oral sex. This could be by physical force, threat of force or because the victim is unable to respond or consent.
– Definition adapted from the AAU survey that was sent to students.
On average, more than 20 percent of college females have been sexually assaulted during their time in college, according to study released Monday by the Association of American Universities.
Ball State was not on the list of 27 universities survey in the study. All of the universities that participated reported between 13 and 30 percent of undergraduate females had been sexually assaulted in college, with Purdue reporting 22 percent.
Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University, which was the only Indiana school on the list, emailed the study results to Purdue students Monday morning.
"When any one of our students experiences a sexual assault or sexual misconduct, that is one too many. I urge all of you to read the results ... and to work to build a better, safer and healthier community," Daniels said in the email.
AAU sent the online survey to to 780,000 students at its member colleges, and about 150,000 participated, according to reporting by the Associated Press. This was one of the largest studies done on sexual assault numbers.
Researchers said the results could have been slightly high because students who didn't reply were less likely to say they had been assaulted, but the results aligned with previous studies done on sexual assault on campuses, the AP reported.
"Our universities are working to ensure their campuses are safe places for students," AAU President Hunter Rawlings said in a statement. "The primary goal of the survey is to help them better understand the experiences and attitudes of their students with respect to this challenge."
The survey was released around the same time as heightened pressure from the White House with the "It's On Us" campaign to stop assaults on campus, and Lady Gaga's music video for her song "Till it Happens To You," which showed how victims are affected by sexual assault.
Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, D-New York, is working to pass a bill to address how sexual assault cases are handled on campus and to improve resources available for students, the Associated Press reported.
"How many surveys will it take before we act with the urgency these crimes demand?" Gillibrand said in an interview with the AP.
Schools who participated in the survey said the results would only provide more fuel to the efforts they already have going on, the AP reported.
The numbers of assaults reported in this study is greater than the number of assaults reported to universities or law enforcement. Across the universities surveyed, anywhere from 5 to 25 percent of incidents were reported to the university or law enforcement so action could be taken.
Students mainly didn't report assaults because they didn't consider them serious enough, or because they felt embarrassed or ashamed, or didn't think action would be taken, the study reported.
At Ball State, 27 sexual assaults were documented in 2013, according to the campus security report. If this number represented all sexual assaults, less than 1 percent of the student body would have experienced the crime. Because sexual assault is an under-reported crime, it isn't easy to get accurate statistics for universities.
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