Disgraceful truths

Now that we know the extent of sexual assaults at UT, lawmakers should step up.

Fifteen percent. For any parent who has sent a daughter off to college, for any young woman who’s enrolled in a university, the story behind that number is downright terrifying. That’s how many undergraduate women recently reported they’ve been raped since they started attending the University of Texas at Austin.

A shocking study conducted at the behest of the UT System Chancellor William McRaven made headlines last week, indicating thousands of students have been sexually assaulted after enrolling at one of the largest institutions of higher education in the United States. More than half of the victims said they were attacked by fellow students.

What’s even more harrowing is that people who’ve dedicated their lives to helping survivors of sexual violence weren’t at all surprised. The UT report only confirms previous studies that have concluded sexual assault is a heinously common crime committed against college-age women. A study covering more than two dozen campuses for The American Association of Universities in 2015 discovered almost 12 percent of students — both men and women — said they’d been victims of either nonconsensual sex acts or sexual touching. Among undergraduate women, that number soared to 23 percent.

Just to be clear, this is not a phenomenon restricted to college campuses. In the UT study, the vast majority of students who reported “unwanted sexual contact” — 87 percent of them — said they were assaulted off campus. Indeed, among women ages 18 to 24, a 2014 Department of Justice analysis concluded rape and sexual assault were actually more common among non-students than among women attending college. This violent crime against young women isn’t just a campus problem, it’s a national crisis.

University officials took their report very seriously and acknowledged they have a duty to take action. UT-Austin President Greg Fenves declared the study “a wake-up call for all of us.” Chancellor McRaven said his institutions wouldn’t hide from the study and vowed to tackle the problem head-on. The university has already announced it will train campus police on techniques for gathering evidence and dealing with victims in sexual assault cases.

Alarmed by what they’ve learned about sex crimes among college students, a number of Texas state lawmakers have already proposed legislation. State Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, has introduced the Campus Sexual Assault and Violence Elimination Act, which would impose criminal penalties against officials at colleges and universities — both public and private — who deliberately fail to report sexual assaults committed against students. State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is pushing legislation that would allow students to anonymously report sexual assaults electronically and grant them amnesty for committing incidental crimes like underage drinking.

What this report out of Austin revealed is shameful, but UT’s chancellor deserves praise for having the courage to order what researchers claim is the most comprehensive sexual assault study in the history of higher education. What happened at Baylor University, a campus reeling from allegations that 31 football players committed 52 rapes, only confirms this problem is not unique to UT. If other college systems conducted similar studies, the disgraceful truth is they would probably end up with similarly appalling data.

Our state lawmakers should pass the legislation proposed by Huffman and Watson. Now that UT has shined a spotlight on this problem, all administrators charged with leadership roles at our state’s institutions of higher learning have a solemn obligation to do whatever it takes to protect college-age men and women from sexual assault.

Alarmed by what they’ve learned about sex crimes among college students, a number of Texas state lawmakers have already proposed legislation.