CMU sexual assault statistics attributed to better reporting
As universities across the country met this week’s deadline for making public their annual reports on sexual assaults, the two largest schools in Pittsburgh, as expected, reported the highest numbers.
But Carnegie Mellon University reported the most instances of rape, dating violence and stalking — despite having roughly half the enrollment of the University of Pittsburgh.
CMU representatives attribute the higher figures to improved reporting practices following a 2015 U.S. Department of Education investigation into how the school handled sexual assault complaints. CMU also said its reports may reflect a duplication of numbers between categories.
The seven colleges and
universities within the Pittsburgh city limits — CMU, Pitt, Carlow, Chatham, Duquesne, Point Park and Community College of Allegheny County — made their figures available by Monday’s deadline. See the chart accompanying this story.
While the larger schools, CMU and Pitt, reported the most, the smaller ones, Carlow and CCAC, reported the least.
Under the 1990 Clery Act — named for Jeanne Clery, who was raped and murdered in 1986 in her Lehigh University dorm room — universities must document and make public reports of rape, inappropriate touching, incest and statutory rape.
“It provides some standardized ways for our institutions to talk about their crimes,” said Laura Egan, of the Clery Center, a nonprofit that educates university personnel about the law. “And it provides ways for consumers of higher education to compare and contrast across campuses.”
A 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act mandated that universities also report dating violence, domestic violence and stalking.
“[That] was instrumental in providing clarity and transparency of what violence looks like on a college campus,” Ms. Egan said. “Many of those actions might have been just captured in institutions policy, not in the statistics. They might have been adjudicated but not reported as a Clery Act crime. They might h ave been responded to by campus as an aggravated assault.”
Incidents that happened on public property contiguous to campus are also included in the Clery Act statistics.
Both Carlow in Oakland and Point Park in Downtown reported more incidents off-campus than on school property. CCAC’s Allegheny campus on the North Side is the only school within the city that does not have residential facilities.
In a statement, CMU spokesperson Jason Maderer noted that sexual assaults are “grossly underreported nationally.”
“At Carnegie Mellon University, we have made significant investments to educate our campus on the importance of reporting, in addition to making campus more aware of the resources and support available to those impacted by sexual violence. This includes a university survey of students conducted in 2015 that led to a clearer, easier-to-understand reporting process.”
The university held a series of forums and surveys in 2015 that revealed, among other findings, that 26 percent of undergraduate women had experienced sexual assault and that fewer than 5 percent of assaults were reported.
“Carnegie Mellon takes the safety and well-being of our faculty, staff and students seriously,” Mr. Maderer continued in the statement. “We are vigilant about reviewing all reports made to the university, in addition to the policies and procedures that prioritize the safety of our campus community.”
He explained how the figures could be duplicated between categories.
“For example, an incident of stalking between two parties that are/were in a dating relationship counts as both stalking and dating violence. The same is true for rape, fondling, incest, statutory rape and stalking,” he said.
Duquesne University students filed two rape reports in September, including one Saturday from a student who reported the assault happened in her campus room.
Duquesne University spokesperson Kenneth Walters said the location of the earlier reported assault was not on campus but in “a non-University affiliated apartment building near the Duquesne University campus.”
Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Alicia George said both reports are still under investigation by city police.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette invited all seven universities to comment on the numbers.
According to a 2015 survey of 27 universities, including the University of Pittsburgh, 23.1 percent of the female and 6.2 percent of the male undergraduates reported being a victim of sexual assault and misconduct on campuses.