Nationally, most don’t report harassment

Roxanne Ready, Editor-in-Chief

In a 2015 nationwide survey, nearly 48 percent of students said they had been sexually harassed since entering their universities, but fewer than 8 percent said they reported the incident.

The Association of American Universities surveyed more than 150,000 students across 27 universities about their experiences with sexual harassment and assault.

Women, transgender people and those identifying as some non-traditional gender identity—listed together on the survey as transgender, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, questioning or not listed—were the most likely to say they had been harassed.

More than 75 percent of transgender and non-traditional genders and almost 62 percent of women said they had been harassed since joining their universities. But nearly 43 percent of men also said they had experienced harassment.

Just 7.7 percent of the 47.7 percent of students who said they had been harassed said they reported it.
The most common reason they chose for not reporting the incident, at 78.6 percent, was, “I did not think it was serious enough to report.”

Eleven percent said they did not report the incident to the school because it happened off campus.

Other common reasons those in the survey gave for not reporting the offenses: They did not expect results and they did not want to get the harasser in trouble. Fewer than 7 percent said they did not know “where to go or who to tell.”