College officials are trumpeting their new core mission of protecting female students from male student sexual aggressors. But academe is strangely silent in the face of professors or administrators themselves allegedly crossing the line by leering, making lewd comments, groping students or worse.
Buried within an influential campus sexual assault survey last year by the Association of American Universities is evidence of hundreds of incidents of inappropriate and potentially criminal behavior by faculty and staff against female students.
“The information buried in the report raises more questions than it answers and requires further investigation and explanation,” said Subodh Chandra, a Cleveland, Ohio, attorney who represents college plaintiffs in sexual misconduct lawsuits.
The anonymously conducted survey at 33 elite schools, ranging from Harvard to Ohio State, generated widespread news coverage by reaffirming a controversial statistic — that one in four college women will be assaulted or raped before they graduate.
The survey’s results concerning a more obvious power mismatch — faculty and staff sexual misbehavior toward female students — were not highlighted. Instead, the information was presented in tables, in a form difficult to decipher by students, parents and others. For example, the survey does not list the number of incidents, but provides the data as percentages – such as 0.3% or 0.5% – weighted for methodological reasons.