USC releases campus climate survey, 29.7 female undergrads report sexual misconduct

Nearly 30 percent of female undergraduate students at USC have experienced some form of sexual assault or misconduct since attending the University, according to respondent results from a university campus climate survey released Monday.

The survey, which was administered last spring, drew responses from just over 8,000 students, or 19.4 percent of those enrolled in a USC degree program.

“It’s hard to draw any hard conclusions from a participation rate of 19 percent,” said Vice Provost of Student Affairs Ainsley Carry in a press briefing Monday morning. “We will take the responses that we have and do the best job we can with the data in front of us.”

USC’s survey was part of a larger organizing effort by the Association of American Universities to administer sexual assault climate surveys to 27 colleges across the country. Of the 21 schools that have released individual data, USC, along with the University of Michigan, had the highest percentage of sexual assault among undergraduate women

On other data points, the University numbers were in line with the AAU’s survey national averages released Monday, Carry said, though he thought the averages were still too high.

“What I cannot emphasize enough is one incident of sexual assault on our campus is too much,” he said. “We have got to end this.”

The forms of sexual misconduct covered in the survey were nonconsensual penetration and nonconsensual sexual touching. In the last school year, 17.3 percent of female undergraduates said they had experienced some form of this misconduct.

Instances involving female undergraduates were considerably greater than male undergraduates, with 6.8 percent male respondents reporting an instance of sexual misconduct since entering USC, and 4 percent reporting an instance within the past year.

There was also a large disparity between graduate and undergraduate students, with 4.2 percent of female graduate students reporting either nonconsensual penetration or nonconsensual sexual touching.

Alcohol was a prevailing factor in the majority of the cases, an issue Carry said may necessitate expanding outreach programs on the substance’s effects.  

“We found with the majority students involved in nonconsensual penetration, alcohol was involved in one or both parties,” he said. “So we have to ramp up our education on alcohol consumption.”

In response to the Monday’s survey results, the University will be holding open conversations and forums with the USC community in the coming weeks to discuss the data and what can be done to further alleviate the frequency of sexual assault and misconduct.

The school is also looking into implementing mandatory sexual assault education for all grade levels, as well as rolling out bystander education courses. The survey showed that 75.7 percent of those who said they were a bystander to sexual assault or misconduct did nothing.  

The above measures are meant to build off a string of changes rolled out over the past two years working to revamp USC’s sexual assault-related programming and procedures.

These changes include the University expanding and relocating the Center for Women and Men to the Engemann Student Health Center, implementing an amnesty policy for those who report or witness sexual misconduct under the influence of alcohol and hiring a full time Title IX investigator who solely investigates cases of sexual misconduct at USC.

In light of the survey, some students said it was indicative that more work needs to be done to reduce the frequency of incidents.

“It either means that we have a problem or it means that the problem has existed for a long time and it’s just that people are speaking more against it now,” said Harry Lam, a sophomore majoring in business administration, regarding the data.

Accessibility to reporting cases of sexual assault is also an problem, said Shyann Murphy, executive director of the Women’s Student Assembly. She said students need to more privy to a reporting process that is shrouded in “legalese.”

“In order to increase reporting rates, every student needs to know what sexual misconduct is and be familiar with the whole process,” she said. “Those are a lot of shame that come along with reporting and admitting you’ve been a victim of sexual assault.”

With the survey data, Murphy said now is a great jumping off point to move forward in sexual assault prevention.
“I’m glad that USC did the survey because now that they have it proven there’s an actual issue, we can look at different avenues in providing resources and changing campus culture,” she said.

 

Editors Note: This post has been updated to include student opinions.