“If you are experiencing gender-based violence, you are not able to equitably access your education," said Tracey Vitchers, the executive director of It’s On Us, a nonprofit to combat campus sexual assault.
Sexual assault is pervasive in higher education, hurting at least 13% of all graduate and undergraduate students. Many efforts were made to prevent such offenses from reoccurring, one of which is to gather data on incidents. The New York State compiled the Enough is Enough dataset with the hope to provide insights into campus sexual violence and develop strategies to alleviate risks.
The Enough is Enough dataset, with data available from 2018 to 2022, stemmed from Education Law Article 129-B, a legislation aiming to establish comprehensive sexual assault prevention. Under this enforcement, higher education institutions are required to submit annual reports on incidents of sexual violence and their adjudication.
The dataset, though aiming to understand the scope of sexual violence, is not comprehensive enough. The only accessible data is from victims who choose to report to the Title IX office. However, as not all survivors choose to report, the Enough Is Enough dataset is too limited to analyze the dynamics of college sexual violence generally.
"Those are the dangerous schools." That is an intuition most of us have when seeing schools with higher incident rates. But experts indicate another possibility: higher numbers may reflect more transparency and accessibility to the college reporting system.
Marisa Curto, Program Director at The Retreat, shared: “When students are provided with information and knowledge, there may actually be more instances where people disclose their situation because they now understand what it is.”
Similarly, Sophie Walters, assistant director at the University of Michigan, said higher reporting made her "happy"—because it shows students understood and knew where to go.
In contrast, 59 institutions reported zero sexual assault cases in 2022. Vitchers raised concerns, noting that zero is not a reasonable number in colleges with high enrollment: “They choose not to report because they could be afraid or do not know how to report.”
More reports could facilitate better understanding and prevention strategies. “You cannot prevent something without knowing how it affects people,” Vitchers said. Anonymous campus climate surveys may be more effective in capturing broader trends.
The Title IX regulations under Trump in 2020 raised the bar for what counts as harassment and introduced mandatory cross-examinations. Vitchers called this a \"traumatizing kangaroo court\" for survivors.
Even among cases that go to institutional proceedings, the rate of respondents found responsible has declined. According to Vitchers, fears of retaliation lawsuits and anti-male criticisms underlie some institutions' hesitancy to hold respondents accountable.
Still, survivors may not always seek formal procedures. Some prefer no-contact directives or housing changes. “Survivors, frankly, know what is going to be best for them,” said Vitchers. “We need to trust that.”
Vitchers and others emphasized the need for prevention programs, onboarding education, and nonprofit partnerships to provide better campus support.
"The full response to sexual incidents needs to be trauma-informed," Walters concluded. "It should include law enforcement, training to nurses, people in academia, and anyone interacting with survivors."