MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Most students say they feel safe on West Virginia University’s main campus, but 1 in 3 women surveyed reported being sexually assaulted, and 10 percent of the female students responding said they’d been raped.
Unfortunately, these numbers are roughly standard for college campuses across the United States, and are most likely under reported, a leading researcher says.
The “climate survey” was sent electronically last spring to 30,470 students on the university’s main campus in Morgantown. Of the 5,718 who responded, 57 percent said they were female and 37 percent male.
One-fourth of these men and women said they had experienced some form of sexual assault during their time at WVU, and 18 percent said someone had fondled them against their will.
Forty-six percent said they’d been sexually harassed — either verbally, through texts, pictures or gestures, pressure for dates or hookups – or when someone exposed their genitals. Thirty percent said they’d been assaulted verbally, in incidents motivated by hate or bias. And 17 percent said they were unwillingly exposed to racist, sexist or other offensive images online.
More than 90 percent said they aren’t worried about being attacked or sexually assaulted by someone they know — a figure that is not necessarily reassuring.
“Most people are sexually assaulted by someone they know,” said Walter DeKeseredy, director of the university’s Research Center on Violence. “A lot of it is coercion.”
