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The Effects of Feminist Mobilization and Women’s Status on Universities’ Reporting of Rape
Abstract
When establishing the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, President Obama reminded universities of their obligation to report accurate rape statistics to the Department of Education. Research has not determined, on a national scale, what factors explain variation in (under)reporting. Using data from 413 top universities’ websites and institutional and archival data, we examine how state- and university-level factors shape universities’ rape reporting. Universities with a greater feminist presence and anti-violence activism, and those located in states where women have higher socioeconomic status and more American Association of University Women partnerships, report more rapes. We examine underreporting as an institutional rather than an individual-level phenomenon, connect campus reporting to the larger reporting literature, and provide practical policy and program implications.
... -Interest Group Activity Feminist mobilization, such as efforts by the Women's Equity Action League and Take Back the Night, provides another avenue through which women can collectively advocate policy preferences related to campus sexual assault. Historically, feminist mobilization has influenced various aspects of rape law reform, such as legal classifications (McMahon-Howard et al., 2009), police responses (Clay-Warner & Burt, 2005), and university reporting of rape incidents (Boyle et al., 2017). In an analysis of 413 universities from 2010 to 2013, Boyle et al. (2017) found that rape reporting and compliance with the Clery Act is higher among universities in states with more local American Association of University Women (AAUW) chapters and higher rates of feminist mobilization. ...
... Historically, feminist mobilization has influenced various aspects of rape law reform, such as legal classifications (McMahon-Howard et al., 2009), police responses (Clay-Warner & Burt, 2005), and university reporting of rape incidents (Boyle et al., 2017). In an analysis of 413 universities from 2010 to 2013, Boyle et al. (2017) found that rape reporting and compliance with the Clery Act is higher among universities in states with more local American Association of University Women (AAUW) chapters and higher rates of feminist mobilization. Indeed, the AAUW-a nationwide interest group organized around the goal of gender equity-actively engages the issue of campus sexual assault. ...
... We included three measures that capture interest group activity. Following Boyle et al. (2017), we included a measure of the influence of the AAUW, which argues that campus sexual assault creates a hostile environment for female students. We measured the total number of AAUW partnerships per ten thousand students in each state. ...
The persistent problem of sexual assault on college campuses is receiving attention in both the public sphere and state legislatures. Although a considerable body of research examines various aspects of campus sexual assault, such as rates and reporting, scholars have not examined how state characteristics and interstate dynamics influence the policy process related to campus sexual assault. This gap is compounded by an underemphasis on gender in theories of state policy adoption, even as a record number of women serve in state legislatures. Drawing on a data set that captures the introduction and enactment of campus sexual assault legislation between 2007 and 2017, David R. Johnson and Liang Zhang examine in this article how the state policy adoption and diffusion framework explains the introduction and enactment of campus sexual assault policy. The results of their study show that the number of forcible sex offenses at public colleges, the number of female Democrats in state senates, contributions from women’s interest groups, gubernatorial power, Republican influence, and bipartisan sponsorship influence the campus sexual assault policy process, with varying influence across legislative stages. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for researchers interested in policy adoption and gender issues as well as for advocates working on campus sexual assault policy reform.
... Indeed, one study found that nearly a third of campus rapes happened at fraternity houses (Minow & Einolf, 2009). Finally, in this article, we highlight an ecological perspective that considers how macrolevel factors, such as the media, legal system, college campus policies and practices, and the climate of the college (e.g., institutional indicators that support women), enhance and undermine norms that shape college men's perpetration of sexual aggression (Boyle et al., 2017;Moylan & Javorka, 2020). A key implication of this perspective is that psychologists' work on preventing campus-based sexual aggression cannot consist solely of individual-level initiatives (e.g., counseling for victims or perpetrators of sexual aggression) but must include advocacy, consultation, and the development of campuswide programs that support antisexual aggression norms. ...
... Spencer et al., 2017). Underscoring the value of a feminist analysis of college-based sexual aggression, one study found higher rates of reports of sexual assault victimization to the U.S. Department of Education in universities that had female university presidents, women's centers, and women's/gender studies programs (Boyle et al., 2017). Perhaps female victims feel more comfortable disclosing their experiences when they perceive that the institutional climate values women's experiences. ...
Sexual aggression is a major problem on U.S. college and university campuses, with about 20% of college women reporting experiences of nonconsensual sexual contact during their time in college and one in 15 college men reporting perpetrating behaviors that would qualify as rape. To address this challenge, we examined conceptual, empirical, and practical insights from the science of social norms that can guide psychologists’ work in the prevention of U.S. college men’s sexual aggression perpetration. Although social norms—the rules and customs that communicate what people do or approve of—have been widely applied in different fields of study, their potential in preventing college men’s sexually aggressive behaviors has not been fully realized. Therefore, guided by feminist, cultural, and ecological perspectives, we explored how prevention practice on college men’s sexual aggression perpetration can benefit from examining six facets of social norms. Specifically, a comprehensive approach to preventing college men’s sexual aggression perpetration should (a) address different types of norms (e.g., descriptive, injunctive, and prescriptive norms), (b) target multiple behaviors and attitudes, (c) tackle both generic- and situation-specific norms, (d) seek to change both perceived and collective norms, (e) deploy diverse sources of normative information about antisexual aggression norms (summative information, individuals’ behaviors, and institutional signals), and (f) strengthen positive norms by increasing their prevalence and importance.
... Research has been somewhat inconsistent regarding the relationship between IHE type and rate of reporting. For instance, Wiersma-Mosley et al. (2017) found lower rates of reporting at public institutions compared with private institutions using annual security report data, whereas Boyle et al. (2017) did not. Richards et al. (2023) found that community colleges report lower rates of sexual misconduct in annual security reports than 4-year public IHEs, but there were no differences in rates of reports to Title IX coordinators. ...
... Wiersma-Mosley et al. (2017) found that IHEs with higher percentages of White students (compared with non-White students) had greater reporting in annual security report data, while Richards et al. (2023) found that IHEs with higher percentages of Black students (compared with White students) had fewer reports in both annual security reports and to Title IX coordinators. Additionally, Boyle et al. (2017) found a significant relationship between more female students and greater reporting in annual security report data, although Richards et al. (2023) found no relationship between the rate of female students and reporting in annual security reports or to Title IX coordinators. Collectively, these studies highlight the importance of considering multiple measures of sexual misconduct reporting as well as the need to consider a range of institutional-level variables when conducting research on campus sexual misconduct reporting. ...
Objective: It is widely assumed that universal mandatory reporting policies (MRPs) for sexual misconduct are important for campus safety, but there is little evidence to support these assumptions. Hypotheses: Given the exploratory nature of this research, no formal hypotheses were tested. We did not expect universal MRPs to be significantly associated with increased reporting or postreporting outcomes. Method: Data on MRPs and sexual misconduct reporting in annual security reports and to Title IX coordinators at institutions of higher education in New York (N = 188) were used to examine the prevalence of universal MRPs as well as the relationship between MRPs and reporting and postreporting outcomes. Results: Descriptives showed that 44% of institutions of higher education have a universal MRP. Multivariate linear regression models indicated that universal MRPs were not significantly related to reporting in annual security reports; reports to Title IX coordinators, campus police, campus safety or security officers; or rates of referrals to additional services, no-contact orders, access to the judicial conduct process for sexual misconduct, or findings of student responsibility for sexual misconduct. Conclusions: Our findings raise concerns about the widespread implementation of MRPs and highlight the need for future research on their impact on student-survivor reporting and access to remedies and resources.
... Women students have been mobilizing for decades against the sexism they experience on campuses, in the classroom, and in the workplace (Boyle, Barr, & Clay-Warner, 2017;Haaken, 2017). As university and government decision-makers are now confronting intensified efforts to protest the rape culture permeating academia, leading to unprecedented developments with this issue, it is certainly not a new problem. ...
... A search in the media archives and a consideration of the campus mobilizations against rape culture in Québec universities lead to the observation that the institutional response has been historically inadequate (Boyle et al., 2017). As summarized in Gialopsos (2017), "To avoid both tarnishing the school's reputation and negatively affecting student enrolment, administrators were often likely to quietly sweep sexual violence under the rug, thereby silencing its victims" (p. ...
Québec university communities are facing intensified pressure to address the incidence of sexual violence on campus. The ESSIMU ( Enquête Sexualité, Sécurité et Interactions en Milieu Universitaire) survey (2016) revealed that one third of respondents (students and employees from six universities, all genders combined) reported having experienced at least one form of sexual violence since arriving at university, committed by someone affiliated with the same university. As the issue is becoming increasingly institutionalized, a process that often erodes activism, this article highlights the role feminist activism has played in placing sexual violence on university campuses on the political agenda. From the dual perspective of feminist activists and researchers on the ESSIMU team, the article explores the backdrop of this mobilization, and the network of feminist resistance that fostered the ESSIMU study, itself a significant contribution to the increased recognition of sexual violence in universities. It also considers the role of university and government institutions in (re)producing such violence and the role of media in making it a public issue.
... Overall, we expect that the status of women within an organization, including women's representation in leadership, will be a strong predictor of reporting because survivors feel safe disclosing and more confident in the process (Boyle, Barr, and Clay-Warner 2017). Indeed, women's visible leadership can serve as an 'accountability cue' to survivors, signaling that the organization is responsive and will act in accordance with its policies (McMahon 2015). ...
Sexual misconduct remains at crisis levels on American college campuses and is vastly underreported. Most research focuses on individual level risks of assault and perpetration, yet campuses vary significantly in sexual offenses and reporting rates. The current study responds to calls to consider institutional factors that shape campus climates for sexual misconduct and reporting. We consider the role of gender in leadership, analyzing the impact of women's appointment as college president on reporting rates over time. We consider individual and organizational mechanisms that may shape the impact of women's appointment on reporting rates. Our analyses rely on data from U.S. colleges and universities between 2005-2020. We find that the appointment of women presidents is associated with a significant increase in reporting of sexual misconduct. We observe a significant increase in reporting during the first year following the appointment and a continued increase in reporting rates over time.
... Es importante notar que las universidades han buscado poner en marcha mecanismos que permitan la erradicación de estas prácticas, principalmente a partir de establecer instancias internas orientadas a prevenir y atender la violencia de género, las cuales se han centrado en sensibilizar y capacitar en la perspectiva de género, y brindar orientación acerca de los procesos administrativos y jurídicos que deben seguirse cuando ocurran estos casos. No obstante, las disposiciones hasta ahora han sido insuficientes para eliminar todas estas manifestaciones de violencia porque, …denunciar el sexismo suele ser desgastante, infructuoso, y puede ser ridículo y hasta peligroso […] El acto de denunciar tendrá eficacia -será más o menos afortunado-en la medida en que el contexto de su recepción sea capaz de combatir y suprimir la cultura del silenciamiento, el derecho a no saber y la ignorancia cultivada(Mingo & Moreno, 2015b, p. 153).Esto quiere decir que no ha sido posible modificar la cultura institucional (Barrantes Sánchez, 2020;Bennett, 2009;Boyle et al., 2017;Cortazar-Rodríguez, 2019;Diezmann & Grieshaber, 2019;Phipps, 2018), por lo que es apremiante cambiar el orden de género imperante en el ámbito universitario(Bhana, 2009;A. Collins et al., 2009;M. ...
Adopting feminist standpoint epistemology, this thesis demonstrates how the gender order and the implementation of neoliberal policies in Colombian public higher education, started in 1992, intertwine to shape the practices of women full professors within the National University of Colombia, Bogotá campus. The research is based on fieldwork developed between November 2018 and December 2020, which includes conducting 45 semi-structured and in-depth interviews, as well as an ethnographic study conducted in relation to the practices of three of the interviewed women professors. The main argument of this thesis is that the interweaving between neoliberalization and gender has given rise to the emergence of the complex reflexivity. This category refers to an internal conversation that women professors have with themselves, and it accounts for the practical way in which they face this context of neoliberalization through pondering their ambiguities and contradictions. This complex reflexivity of women full professors combines adaptation, moonlighting, envies, and at the same time dealing with the administration, individualized protests, stopping and caring. With these practices, the professors navigate the shortcomings and conflicts in the university, but they also carry out modifications to these supposedly immovable conditions, thus restructuring their experiences within the institution.
... One in four female college students experience some form of sexual violence, and one in seventeen male college students experience sexual violence (Sabina and Ho 2014). These staggering statistics, in addition to high-profile incidents of sexual assault and administrative cover-ups, have prompted public pressure on politicians to enact policies aimed at reducing the prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses (Boyle, Barr and Clay-Warner 2017). We have seen political action in the form of new guidance and regulations from the U.S. Department of Education, federal courts, and state sexual violence laws. ...
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/167879/1/mchamra.pdf
... However, structural diversity does provide opportunities for other activities such as cross-racial interaction that have been shown to shift individuallevel outcomes (Hurtado et al., 2008). Relative to campus sexual violence, at least one study has found that the composition of women in leadership positions may influence rates of sexual violence or likelihood of reporting (Boyle et al., 2017). Research on sexual harassment has found stronger empirical evidence that the gendered composition of the workplace, leadership, and historical gendered nature of the occupation, is predictive of sexual harassment, suggesting that compositional climate is relevant to at least some forms of sexual misconduct (Fitzgerald et al., 1997;Willness et al., 2007). ...
Objective: Campus climate surveys related to sexual violence have become commonplace on college campuses. Despite what their name implies, these surveys have lacked both a clear definition of climate and conceptualization of how climate shapes sexual violence. Moreover, these surveys have largely focused on individual attitudes and behaviors, paying limited attention to campus-level factors that could be targeted to strengthen campus response and prevention efforts. Methods: Drawing on research related to sexual violence and climate assessment in other fields, we propose a comprehensive definition of climate comprising five dimensions—behavioral, perceived, felt, structural, and historical climate. Using this multidimensional framework, we identify aspects not currently assessed by existing climate assessments that have the potential to inform a more comprehensive assessment of climate as it relates to sexual violence. Results: Current climate assessments focus mostly on behavioral climate and perceived climate, with less attention to felt, structural, and historical climate. Addressing these additional climate dimensions would allow institutions to identify and track factors that result in disproportionate burden of sexual violence among students with marginalized identities and help identify prevention targets at the outer levels of the social ecology. Conclusion: A more comprehensive climate assessment may empower institutions to enact programs or policies, foster community norms, grapple with complicated histories, and otherwise endeavor to change their climate to one that effectively prevents and responds to sexual violence.
... Campuses that are perceived as more inclusive, by sexual and gender-minority students, show lower rates of sexual violence (Coulter & Rankin (2017). Similarly, researchers have found that universities with greater levels of feminist antiviolence activism had higher level of reporting (Boyle et al., 2017). This suggests that campuses that embrace a culture of feminism and anti-violence can positively influence the degree to which survivors feel comfortable and safe reporting their assault. ...
Undergraduate students with disabilities represent an important population on college campuses. Yet the incidence of sexual violence and disclosing/reporting of sexual violence among this population is understudied. This exploratory and largely descriptive study uses an intersectional framework to understand the sexual victimization of undergraduate students with disabilities at a large Mid-Atlantic academic institution. The sample consisted of students who completed a sexual violence module (N = 2,929) as part of a larger campus climate survey. Students with disabilities comprised a smaller sample within this group (n = 177) and descriptive and chi-square results from both groups of students are reported. Students with disabilities had a statistically significant higher likelihood of sexual violence victimization before coming to campus and while at the university, with much higher rates for precollege victimization than students with no disabilities. Disclosure rates were not different for students across the two groups, though students with disabilities were more likely to utilize formal sources of support, such as campus Title IX offices and mental health services. This study shows support for a strengths-based approach that recognizes that students with disabilities may be more likely to reach out to campus resources. The findings of the study also underscore the need for culturally relevant victim services for students with disabilities. An evaluation of the culture of a university and its environment of openness, sharing, community, and protection (or lack thereof) can be a key point for future approaches to sexual violence on campus.
... Feminist professionals on campus represent an engaging area for research on unobtrusive mobilization and legal education (Katuna & Holzer, 2016;Katzenstein, 1990). For example, universities with women's centers and gender studies programs are more compliant with the Clery Act (Boyle, Barr, & Clay-Warner, 2017). Women's centers and victim advocates are the legacy of feminist anti-rape organizing and rape crisis centers (Bevacqua, 2000;Martin, 2005). ...
In the last 8 years, activist pressure has increased attention to sexual violence at universities. Most recently, the #MeToo movement has widened the conversation about sexual violence. This increased public attention has coincided with changes in federal guidelines, state laws, and campus policies on sexual violence as well as social movement activity by survivor‐activists and emerging counter‐movements. I argue that sociologists—specifically researchers who study gender and/or law and society—are uniquely situated to contribute to the study of sexual violence on campus. I synthesize a growing sociological and interdisciplinary literature on sexual violence—legal changes, policy effects, and social movement struggles—in order to advocate that sociologists study laws, campus policies, and social movements simultaneously.
... Five percent of active-member women were sexually assaulted during a single year, and the majority of those who officially reported were retaliated against (Morral et al. 2015). Some universities notoriously fail to accurately report sexual assault (Boyle et al. 2017) and mismanage cases that are brought forth (e.g., Anonymous 2018). We each must learn to more deeply appreciate that it is our social responsibility to challenge what is normative but immoral-for example by empathically listening to, crediting, and amplifying the voices of women, People of Color, and other marginalized individuals (in this vein, see Fricker 2007 for an excellent discussion of testimonial [in]justice and virtuous hearing). ...
Rape culture is characterized by prevalent rape of women by male acquaintances, which is exacerbated in the aftermath by
negative social responses including attributions of victim culpability. In prior research, collaborators and I found that, consistent
with norm theory, perceiving sociolegal context as unclear and ineffective in expressing that rape of women is a crime (vs.
perceiving that law clearly and effectively expresses that rape is a crime) paradoxically intensified negative reactions and
culpability attributions toward a woman raped by a male acquaintance. In the current research, I tested the hypothesis that,
amidst rape culture, structural racism—in particular, disparate hypersexuality stereotyping of Black men—paradoxically would
intensify attributions of victim culpability toward a woman raped by a Black male acquaintance. In Study 1, 268 students at a
university in the Southern United States stereotyped Black men and Black women as more hypersexual than same-gender
counterparts of other races/ethnicities. In Study 2, 238 students from the same university attributed more culpability to an
acquaintance rape victim whose perpetrator was Black (vs. perpetrators of other races/ethnicities), and this effect resulted in part
from rape-propensity stereotyping that was disparately activated by the Black perpetrator. Taken together, the present research
highlights that intersectional dynamics do not work exclusively within members of particular groups, where marginalized identities coincide, but also in the contextual space that invisibly but undeniably affects people’s lives. Suggestions for combatting rape culture, structural racism, and their intersections are discussed.
Full-text PDF: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11199-019-1003-3.pdf
... Furthermore, feminist theory dictates that RMA allows sexual assault to continue to occur in American culture [16]; therefore, feminist beliefs may be another variable that affects students' disclosure likelihood, as individuals high in feminist beliefs may be more likely to reject rape myths. In fact, a recent study found that universities with a female president reported 40% more rapes to the Department of Education and had higher levels of estimated compliance with reporting than universities with a male president [17]. ...
Per Title IX of the Higher Education Amendments of 1972, many university employees are mandated reporters of sexual assault. University employees (N = 174) and students (N = 783) completed an online survey assessing knowledge and opinions of this reporting requirement. University employees and students generally reported being quite knowledgeable of reporting requirements. Most university employees indicated they would report an incident disclosed by a student, but students were fairly ambivalent about whether they would disclose to faculty members. Nearly one in five students (17.2%) indicated that Title IX reporting requirements decreased their disclosure likelihood. These findings suggest that mandated reporting policies, as well as how they are presented to students and faculty, should be examined in order to increase compliance and facilitate disclosure.
... The multicampus climate survey conducted by the AAU found that private universities had a higher rate of sexual assault victimization than public universities (Cantor et al., 2015). An investigation of 413 campuses found that a number of variables reflecting the status of women both within the campus and at the state level, including women in leadership positions, feminist mobilization, antiviolence advocacy, and women's socioeconomic status, all predicted reports of sexual assault, suggesting that campus-level variables shape the degree to which survivors feel comfortable disclosing their assaults to their campus (Boyle, Barr, & Clay-Warner, 2017). Each of these studies suggests specific contextual factors that may be linked to increased rates of sexual violence at the campus level and formal reporting of sexual assaults. ...
Varying prevalence rates of sexual violence across colleges and universities indicate the need to understand institutional factors underlying such variation; however, research often focuses exclusively on individual risk and protective factors, which both under theorizes and under explains the phenomenon of campus sexual assault. In this review, we propose that broadening to include campus- and contextual-level factors is necessary to fully explain campus sexual assault. Using an ecological approach, we identify and synthesize research related to campus-level variation in sexual violence, including availability of campus services and resources for survivors, institutional risk factors such as alcohol and party culture, athletics, and fraternities, and the impact of policies at the state and federal levels. Suggestions are made for conducting additional research at the campus level and implications of reframing campus sexual assault from an institutional lens are discussed, including the importance of this approach for practice, evaluation, and policy.
We propose a behavioral-science approach to sexual assault on college campuses. In this framework, people commit assault when aspects of the immediate situation trigger certain psychological states. No set of mental processes or situational configurations is a precise predictor of assault. Instead, the interaction between mental processes and situational configurations predicts when sexual assault is more or less likely to occur. We begin with an illustrative story to show how a behavioral-science approach is relevant to sexual assault. Next, we map out a framework that suggests how behavioral theories of situations and mental processes have been or could be used to describe, predict, and develop ideas for the reduction of sexual assault. Relevant situational configurations include geographical configurations, local situational and informational cues, and situation-based power. Theories of mental processes include person perception, social norms, moral reasoning, and goals. Our framework can be used to demonstrate how “good” people can commit assault and how individuals can and will refrain from assault within institutions with a “bad” record. Compared with previous theories of sexual assault, a behavioral-science framework offers unique understanding and generative methods for addressing sexual assault on college campuses.
Objective:
Few studies have compared measures of sexual misconduct reporting, and there are few assessments of campus policies on reporting.
Methods:
Using data from New York institutions of higher education (IHEs) (N = 209) we compare the number of sexual misconduct incidents reported in Annual Security Reports (ASRs) and to Title IX coordinators, and explore the relationship between policies and reporting across both measures, while controlling for institutional factors.
Results:
The majority of IHEs had higher numbers of sexual misconduct incidents reported to Title IX coordinators than reported in ASR data. Student bills of rights were associated with higher reporting in ASRs no policies were associated with reporting to Title IX coordinators.
Conclusions:
Campus sexual misconduct is both a public policy and a public health problem; we must advance the role of data and data-driven decision-making in crafting evidenced-based solutions.
This article examines the subtle violence that women full professors experience within the National University of Colombia (NU) under neoliberal policies. To this end, it presents semi-structured interviews conducted with 24 women full professors. The content analysis of the interviews, based on grounded theory, shows that the professors are subjected to subtle violence resulting from two discreet habits: (1) infliction of moral injury (being forgotten by the neoliberal system; envy; discrediting), and (2) disruption of the academic performance (work overload; job obstruction; poaching thesis students away). The findings suggest that professors’ lives have been affected by lack of funds and peer competition. Further, there is the issue of care, as well as domestic activities, leading to a double burden, which makes it difficult to fulfil the neoliberal productivist mandates. In this way, neoliberal policies allow the continuation of reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes that result in unequal conditions for women in the academy.
The Universities UK (UUK) Taskforce report, Changing the Culture, has been seen as a turning point in U.K. universities’ responses to gender-based violence (GBV). Institutional changes have occurred as a response to grassroots feminist activism and resistance to GBV, focusing on sexual violence, harassment, and “lad culture” in universities. This article will argue that the neoliberal marketization of higher education, concurrent with the persistence of misogyny and patriarchy, creates an environment where GBV is normalized, and feminist voices are marginalized and silenced. Interviews with academics show support for victims/survivors on campus often falls to particular academic staff. When initiatives for change, led by institutional management, are limited to protecting the “reputation” of the university, it furthermore falls on academics to challenge not only GBV, but also the reactive and uncritical responses offered by institutions. We contend that national, institutional, and individual responses to GBV must consider the meaning of “cultural change” beyond policy reform, zero tolerance campaigns, and condemnation of GBV. Attempts to enact true cultural change must analyze the broader issue of sexism, its intersections with further structural issues, and the ways in which this plays out within the neoliberal institution to the detriment of students and staff.
In recent years, movements such as #metoo, Slutwalk, and others have drawn attention to women’s experiences of a lack of safety in public, professional, and educational spaces. This article steps back to an earlier era of such activism, tracking the context in which blue-light emergency phones were installed on college and university campuses in the United States. I argue that blue-light phones constitute an infrastructure of feeling, drawing on Raymond Williams’ classic formulation of the ‘structure of feeling’. They served not only to address emergent understandings of campus safety (particularly sexual assault), but to produce affective experiences of ‘safety’ among students, parents, and administrators. The infrastructure of blue-light emergency phones then concretized that structure of feeling in such a way as to render it more dominant, more persistent, and more tightly intertwined with local campus cultures, not only at the time, but through to the present day.
Unwanted sexual experiences are seldom acknowledged as “rape.” These are identity-threatening events that cause negative affect and cognitive confusion. According to affect control theory, such events produce deflection that is resolved through restorative acts, redefinition of behavior, or modification or redefinition of identities. Since deflection reduction is an underspecified aspect of the theory, we employ theories of power dependence to better understand these processes. Using a mixed method approach, we qualitatively analyze 115 narratives about unwanted sexual experiences, finding respondents framed events in ways that protect the other person or their own self-meanings. We use closed-ended survey data to simulate women’s experiences in Interact, affect control theory’s predictive software, to demonstrate how event reframings reduce deflection. Finally, we estimate regressions to predict how power dependence and other relational contexts influence responses to unwanted sexual experiences.
Sexual assault is a serious concern on college and university campuses across the United States. However, the institutional factors that may make campuses more or less prone to rape are poorly understood. This study utilizes routine activities theory (RAT) to examine campus-related factors across 524 four-year campuses in the United States to determine what features of a campus community are most closely associated with increased reports of sexual assault. Results suggest that the type of athletic program, the number of students who live on campus, and the institution’s alcohol policy were all found to be related to reported sexual assaults. Implications for understanding campus communities and prevention of sexual assaults are discussed.
This study tests whether there is substantial undercounting of sexual assault by universities. It compares the sexual assault data submitted by universities while being audited for Clery Act violations with the data from years before and after such audits. If schools report higher rates of sexual assault during times of higher regulatory scrutiny (audits), then that result would support the conclusion that universities are failing to accurately tally incidents of sexual assault during other time periods. The study finds that university reports of sexual assault increase by approximately 44% during the audit period. After the audit is completed, the reported sexual assault rates drop to levels statistically indistinguishable from the preaudit time frame. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the ordinary practice of universities is to undercount incidents of sexual assault. Only during periods in which schools are audited do they appear to offer a more complete picture of sexual assault levels on campus. Further, the data indicate that the audits have no long-term effect on the reported levels of sexual assault, as those crime rates return to previous levels after the audit is completed. This last finding is supported even in instances when fines are issued for noncompliance. The study tests for a similar result with the tracked crimes of aggravated assault, robbery, and burglary, but reported crimes show no statistically significant differences before, during, or after audits. The results of the study point toward 2 broader conclusions directly relevant to policymaking in this area. First, greater financial and personnel resources should be allocated commensurate with the severity of the problem and not based solely on university reports of sexual assault levels. Second, the frequency of auditing should be increased, and statutorily capped fines should be raised to deter transgressors from continuing to undercount sexual violence. The Campus Accountability and Safety Act, presently before Congress, provides an important step in that direction.
Concerns about the treatment of rape victims and attrition in rape cases prompted a nationwide movement to reform state rape laws. In this study we evaluate the impact of rape law reforms on reports of rape and the processing of rape cases in six urban jurisdictions-Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, and Washington, D.C. Our results strongly suggest that the ability of rape reform legislation to affect case outcomes is limited. Time-series analyses revealed that predicted results were found in only one of the six jurisdictions, and there the results were limited.
Most studies of rape-law reform outcomes focus on single cases. We advance this literature by studying outcomes more systematically—leveraging new cross-national and longitudinal reform data—and showing that reform outcomes have both global and national determinants. Our exploratory analyses show three main findings: (1) Rape-law reforms are strongly associated with elevated police reporting between 1945 and 2005. (2) The strength of the association depends on domestic contexts. The association is stronger in countries characterized by individualism, women's mobilization, wealth, and education; it is weaker in countries with greater democracy and police strength. (3) The strength of the association also depends on global contexts. It is stronger in countries with dense linkages to world society and weaker under conditions of global institutionalization, as widespread diffusion gives rise to both ceremony without substance (i.e., domestic rape-law reforms without subsequent increases in reporting) and substance without ceremony (increased police reporting without antecedent reforms). In multivariate regression analyses, rape-law reforms, women's mobilization, and links to world society all have positive and significant effects on police reporting. It appears that both global and domestic contexts—together and independently—importantly shape policy and practice.
There has been ongoing debate on how women are counted when they do not acknowledge as rapes experiences that are characterized by the key components of rape. This article explores this methodological issue by using a two-stage measurement strategy with behaviorally specific screen questions to gather information on incidents of sexual victimization from 4,446 randomly selected female college students. Our results revealed that almost half of the completed rape victims considered the incidents rapes, yet few of the attempted rape or nonrape victims considered the incidents rapes. The results of a multivariate analysis highlighted the characteristics of incidents that are likely to be considered rapes. The findings buttress the assertion that women who are counted as rape victims have experienced such victimization.
This article will present data gathered by the authors through structured clinical interviews of 561 paraphiliacs regarding demographic characteristics, frequency and variety of deviant sexual acts, and number and characteristics of victims. Results show that nonincarcerated sex offenders (1) are well educated and socioeconomically diverse; (2) report an average number of crimes and victims that is substantially higher than that represented in the current literature; and (3) sexually molest young boys with an incidence that is five times greater than the molestation of young girls. The relevance of these findings is discussed.
Two theories of rape reporting, the Classic Rape perspective and Black's Theory of the Behavior of Law, are tested in this article. We offer the first comprehensive multivariate test of Classic Rape predictions among a nationally representative sample of victims, as well as the first test of Black's predictions for rape reporting. Through the construction of multinomial regression models, we are able to examine reporting patterns for both victims and third parties. Weapon use and physical injury consistently predicted reporting. The likelihood of victim reporting significantly increased when assaults occurred either in public or through a "home blitz," whereas place of assault did not affect the likelihood of third-party reporting. On the other hand, victim-offender relationship significantly affected the likelihood of third-party reporting but was not significant in the victim-reporting models. There were mixed findings regarding Black's stratification and morphology predictions, and we found no significant effects for culture, organization, or social control. Overall, these findings lend greater support to the Classic Rape perspective than to Black's model.
What counts as "violence" is socially constructed, has varied over time, and reflects power relationships. Informed by social constructionism, we illustrate these points using as examples sexual violence and domestic violence. We review changes in how society and social scientists have defined and understood these topics during the last 30 years. We then discuss 3 areas of continuing controversy: who should decide if sexual or domestic violence has occurred, what to count as sexual and domestic violence, and the role of gender in defining sexual and domestic violence.
Using data from the National Violence Against Women Survey, the authors examine whether rapes committed after reforms were more likely to be reported to police than those committed before reforms. The authors also consider whether the gap between the reporting of simple versus aggravated rape has narrowed. They find that rapes committed after 1990 were more likely to be reported than rapes occurring before 1974. Aggravated rape continues to be more likely to be reported than simple rape, however, and this effect is stable over time. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for evaluating the success of rape reform statutes.
The authors asked college students to rate the importance of a list of barriers to reporting rape and sexual assault among male and female victims. The authors' findings indicate that barriers prevalent 30 years ago, prior to efforts by the rape reform movement, continue to be considered important among college men and women. The barriers rated as the most important were (1) shame, guilt, embarrassment, not wanting friends and family to know; (2) concerns about confidentiality; and (3) fear of not being believed. Both genders perceived a fear of being judged as gay as an important barrier for male victims of sexual assault or rape and fear of retaliation by the perpetrator to be an important barrier for female victims.
Congress passed legislation requiring colleges and universities in the United States that receive federal financial aid funds to publish campus crime figures starting in the fall of 1992. While this legislation was intended to bring about widespread dissemination of information concerning campus crime, the problem remains that little systematic research has been done on campus crime. This article presents the results of a preliminary analysis of the correlates of crime at over 500 college and university campuses in the United States. It describes the extent and nature of campus crime, presents a preliminary model of the correlates of crime on these campuses, and presents a framework for further research based in ecological theory and theories of the community.
This section presents the third volume of Max Weber's fundamental work Economy and Society which has been translated into Russian for the first time. The third volume includes two works devoted to the sociology of law. The first, 'The Economy and Laws', discusses differences between sociological and juridical approaches to studies of social processes. It describes peculiarities of normative power arenas (orders) at different levels and demonstrates how they influence the economy. The second, 'Economy and Law' ('Sociology of Law'), reviews the evolution of law orders (primarily, the three "greatest systems of law" including Roman Law, Anglo-American Law, and European Continental Law) in the context of changes in the organization of economy and structures of dominancy. Law is considered an influential factor of the rationalization of social life which in turn is affected by a rationalized economy and social management. The Journal of Economic Sociology here publishes an excerpt from the chapter 'Law, Convention and Custom' in this third volume, which shows the role of the habitual in the formation of law; explains the importance of intuition and empathy for the emergence of new orders; and discusses the changeable borders between law, convention and custom. The translation is edited by Leonid Ionin and the chapter is published with the permission of HSE Publishing House. © 2018 National Research University Higher School of Economics. All rights reserved.
Edited volume of original works that examine the legal, social, and security contexts of campus crime
This study tests whether there is substantial undercounting of sexual assault by universities. It compares the sexual assault data submitted by universities while being audited for Clery Act violations with the data from years before and after such audits. If schools report higher rates of sexual assault during times of higher regulatory scrutiny (audits), then that result would support the conclusion that universities are failing to accurately tally incidents of sexual assault during other time periods. The study finds that university reports of sexual assault increase by approximately 44% during the audit period. After the audit is completed, the reported sexual assault rates drop to levels statistically indistinguishable from the pre-audit time frame. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the ordinary practice of universities is to undercount incidents of sexual assault. Only during periods in which schools are audited do they appear to offer a more complete picture of sexual assault levels on campus. Further, the data indicate that the audits have no long-term effect on the reported levels of sexual assault as those crime rates return to previous levels after the audit is completed. This last finding is supported even in instances when fines are issued for non-compliance. The study tests for a similar result with the tracked crimes of aggravated assault, robbery, and burglary, but reported crimes show no statistically significant differences before, during, or after audits. The results of the study point toward two broader conclusions directly relevant to policymaking in this area. First, greater financial and personnel resources should be allocated commensurate with the severity of the problem and not based solely on university reports of sexual assault levels. Second, the frequency of auditing should be increased and statutorily-capped fines should be raised in order to deter transgressors from continuing to undercount sexual violence. The Campus Accountability and Safety Act, presently before Congress, provides an important step in that direction.
Mandatory reporting (MR) policies concerning sexual assault victimization now extend to institutions of higher education. The laws are new and thus controversial since relatively little investigation into their impact has occurred. Additionally, since the laws require disclosure to police, at times, even in instances where victims object, opponents have expressed concerns about potential unintended effects, such as diminished victim autonomy. Perhaps, though, the most glaring question involves how college students perceive the policies. Because students are the focus of the laws, this investigation evaluates student opinion about MR, including approval for the policy, the likelihood of personally reporting under MR, perceptions of faculty compliance, and expected outcomes of MR laws. Findings suggest overwhelming support for MR, substantial likelihood of personally reporting assault under the law, and strong belief in faculty compliance. Not least, although students recognize both the positive and negative possibilities of the law, higher percentages believed in the law’s potential benefits (e.g., increase university accountability). Implications for research and policy are discussed.
This chapter sets forth a general theory of gender stratification. While both biological and ideological variables are taken into account, the emphasis is structural: It is proposed that the major independent variable affecting sexual inequality is each sex's economic power, understood as relative control over the means of production and allocation of surplus. For women, relative economic power is seen as varying-and not always in the same direction-at a variety of micro- and macrolevels, ranging from the household to the state. A series of propositions links the antecedents of women's relative economic power, the interrelationship between economic and other forms of power, and the forms of privilege and opportunity into which each gender can translate its relative power.
I analyze the anti-rape movement from a theoretical perspective, emphasizing interest-group formation and action and the generation of social problems by social movements. Although a variety of interst groups have expressed increasing concern over forcible rape, thus contributing to its definition as a social problem, the feminist perspective represents the most active and vocal of anti-rape interests. The activities and analyses of anti-rape forces in three areas are examined: at the community level, in the legislative arena, and in the judicial sphere. Although there has been resistance to the feminist challenge of traditional definitions of rape within each arena, much has been accomplished. The process of defining rape as a serious social problem continues.
While efforts to criminalize spousal rape began in the 1970s, by 2002 only twenty-three states had adopted laws that allow for the full prosecution of sexual assault by a spouse. The authors present the first analysis of martial rape law reform to incorporate insights from research on diffusion. The authors find that states are more likely to criminalize spousal rape when women in the state have more economic power. Conversely, states are less likely to criminalize spousal rape when the legislature passed previous incremental reforms or when a neighboring state already criminalized spousal rape. The authors also find that states that criminalize spousal rape under a split-party government are particularly influential in the spread of such reforms and that the processes driving early diffusion are different than the processes driving later diffusion. Overall, results suggest that understanding law reforms requires greater attention to incremental change, negative effects of spatial diffusion, and the importance of time.
Campus-based women’s centers can provide a wealth of resources to feminist social workers, yet little has been written about their structure and practices. This article reports on a study of 75 campus-based women’s centers in the United States during academic year 1999-2000. Responses to the portions of the survey that were devotedto the programs of these centers are summarized, with particular attention to the various means of fostering the participation of specific populations on campus. Barriers to the successful operation of women’s centers that were identified by the respondents are also discussed.
In this national study on the impact of the Clery Campus Crime Disclosure and Reporting Act, 305 college administrators distributed questionnaires to 9,150 undergraduate students. Student knowledge of the Act and changes in student behavior were minimal and varied by gender, victim status, institution type, and institution size.
:Although there is a sizeable body of evidence to suggest that women's social and economic status in the United States has been steadily eroded in recent years, pundits celebrating the dawn of the age of "post-feminism" abound. The article examines three of the most popular arguments launched against women's studies programs in the wake of some recent and, hopefully, precipitous announcements of the decline of such programs in the United States and Great Britain. Women's studies rejects the idea that knowledge can be reduced to a set of individual outcomes, in favor of a vision of knowledge production that is holistic, historically situated, particularist, and pragmatic—working through collective and conversation and debate across disciplines and between the university and its wider public. As such, women's studies, far from ancillary, is central to the mission of the university. The challenge now facing feminists dwelling in the ruins of the "post-feminist" university is how to begin to generate approaches to the study of women that insist upon the distinctly "feminine" and "qualitative" dimensions of human experience across the disciplines—approaches that do not simply counter women's exclusion from dominant regimes of knowledge, but that actively work to create new standards of intellectual value.
Given the high prevalence of crime within the general population and the increased rates of victimization among those seeking medical care, professionals who work in emergency departments, primary care medical facilities, or mental health settings need to be prepared to address physical and psychological problems related to sexual and physical assault. In this paper, interpersonal violence prevalence studies are reviewed in terms of study design and findings for sexual assault and physical assault. Common injuries following both forms of assault are documented, followed by a review of long-term medical outcomes. In addition to a review of physical health outcomes, primary psychological effects of violence are also reviewed. Strategies with which to screen for interpersonal violence in the medical setting are offered, and issues related to mandatory reporting are summarized. Interventions for assault victims that can be implemented in the medical setting are outlined, and a new hospital-based treatment for victims of rape is described. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Clin Psychol 56: 1317–1333, 2000.
As colleges and universities evolve, so too do the complexities of creating safe environments for students. This chapter describes safety in its various contexts and provides an overview for the volume.
We use data from the National Crime Survey (NCS) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to explore changes in the likelihood of police notification in rape incidents. The findings indicate that during the 1970s and 1980s there was a significant increase in police notification by third parties and by victims raped by non-strangers. During the 1990s the increase in rates of police notification in rape incidents accelerated and broadened in scope. In addition, differences in police notification between stranger and non-stranger incidents diminished during the 1970s and 1980s and, by the early 1990s there was no significant difference.
Economic ActionThe concept of economic actionReligious Ethics and Economic RationalityThe Market: Its Impersonality and EthicClass, Status, PartyEconomically Determined Power and the Status OrderDetermination of Class Situation by Market SituationStatus HonorParties
The purpose of this study was to explore what factors served as impediments to institutional efforts to comply with Clery
Act guidelines through the perceptions of campus law administrators. Statistical analyses were performed on data collected
from an online survey, which was distributed to members of the International Association of Campus Law Administrators currently
working at colleges and universities in the United States. Survey items were designed to explore the relationship between
the following factors and Clery Act compliance: (a) institutional resistance, (b) ambiguity in the Act, (c) lack of funding,
(d) lack of support, and (e) inaccurate reporting. Mazmanian and Sabatier’s Theory of Effective Policy Implementation was
used as a conceptual framework to examine challenges to institutional compliance with the Clery Act statute. The findings
in this study will be used to help college administrators assess how to improve the performance level of campus law personnel
in relation to promoting campus safety and complying with the Clery Act statute.
To increase understanding about the response to sexual assault, five focus group interviews were conducted with community-based sexual assault workers as well as officials affiliated with colleges and universities throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. Attention was given to the differences in collaboration challenges confronted by those serving college students and those serving the general population. Results suggested that while the needs of the two types of workers are similar, the types of collaboration challenges confronted varied according to the cultural and spatial dynamics of each setting. College campus sexual assault workers confronted one set of obstacles, while community-based workers confronted a different set. Ways to address these challenges are considered. Implications focus on the development of protocol, increased funding, and collaborative training.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Cincinnati, 1996. Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-128). Photocopy. s
A national hospital/community model protocol was developed for the forensic and medical examination of victims of sexual assault. This review is designed to assist states in the development of sexual assault protocols. Controversial issues were addressed, including the collection of hair evidence, the importance of semen, mandatory reporting, pregnancy testing and prophylaxis, and sexually transmitted diseases including human immunodeficiency virus. The current role of DNA profiling is reviewed. These issues at the interface of medicine, forensic science, victim advocacy, and the law are analyzed. Representatives of the medical, legal, law enforcement, victim advocacy, and forensic science communities contributed to the development of the protocols at the national and state levels. The importance of a collaborative effort is emphasized. The broad protocol goals are to minimize the physical and psychological trauma to the victim while maximizing the probability of collecting and preserving physical evidence for potential use in the legal system.
Pooling data from four samples in which 1,882 men were assessed for acts of interpersonal violence, we report on 120 men whose self-reported acts met legal definitions of rape or attempted rape, but who were never prosecuted by criminal justice authorities. A majority of these undetected rapists were repeat rapists, and a majority also committed other acts of interpersonal violence. The repeat rapists averaged 5.8 rapes each. The 120 rapists were responsible for 1,225 separate acts of interpersonal violence, including rape, battery, and child physical and sexual abuse. These findings mirror those from studies of incarcerated sex offenders (Abel, Becker, Mittelman, Cunningham-Rathner, Rouleau, & Murphy, 1987; Weinrott and Saylor, 1991), indicating high rates of both repeat rape and multiple types of offending. Implications for the investigation and prosecution of this so-called "hidden" rape are discussed.
American Association of University Women
- R Ali
Ali, R. (2011, April 4). Dear colleague letter. Retrieved from http://
www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/dear_colleague_sexual_ violence.pdf
AAUW branches and C/U partners. (n.d.). American Association of University Women.
Retrieved August 31, 2015, from https://ww2.aauw.org/branch_locator/index.php
The impact of the structure, function, and resources of the campus security office on campus safety (Doctoral dissertation)
- P A Bennett
Bennett, P. A. (2012). The impact of the structure, function, and resources of the campus
security office on campus safety (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from UNLV Theses,
Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. Paper 1540.
Research on the Clery Act and crime reporting: Its impact on the literature and administrative practice in higher education
- D E Gregory
- S M Janosik
Gregory, D. E., & Janosik, S. M. (2013). Research on the Clery Act and crime reporting: Its
impact on the literature and administrative practice in higher education. In B. S. Fisher &
J. J. Sloan (Eds.) Campus Crime: Legal, Social, and Policy Perspectives (pp. 45-64).
Gender and the expansion of social rights: Marital rape laws in the United States
- A L Jackson
Jackson, A. L. (2014). Gender and the expansion of social Rights: Marital rape laws in the
United States. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological
The extent and patterns of compliance with the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990 among post-secondary institutions: A national study. Executive summary prepared for the U
- C Lu
Lu, C. (1996). The extent and patterns of compliance with the Crime Awareness and Campus
Security Act of 1990 among post-secondary institutions: A national study. Executive
summary prepared for the U.S. General Accounting Office, August.
Media construction of campus sexual assault: A case study (Doctoral dissertation)
- S Murrizi
Murrizi, S. (2015). Media construction of campus sexual assault: A case study (Doctoral
dissertation). Retrieved from the University of Ottawa
https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/32211.
Rape and sexual assault among college-age females
- S Sinozich
- L P Langton
Sinozich, S., & Langton, L. P. (2014). Rape and sexual assault among college-age females,
1995-2013. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf.
The Clery Act: Crime reporting concerns
- A R Wood
- S M Janosik
Wood, A. R., & Janosik, S. M. (2012). The Clery Act: Crime reporting concerns. URMIA
Journal, 9-15.
The campus law enforcement officer and student affairs: A partnership to address stalking behaviors on campus
- N L Wood
- R A Wood
Wood, N. L., & Wood, R. A. (2001). The campus law enforcement officer and student affairs: A
partnership to address stalking behaviors on campus. Campus Law Enforcement
Journal, 31(1), 19-33.