More than 40 percent of colleges have not investigated any sexual assaults in the past five years, according to a new survey conducted by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and the Senate Subcommittee on Financial & Contracting Oversight.
Title IX requires that schools to investigate incidents of sexual assault where appropriate to find out what occurred.
The McCaskill survey, which polled 236 four-year institutions, did not determine whether there were any sexual assaults reported at the schools that did not investigate any incidents. But by comparing the survey results to Department of Education data on the number of sexual assaults reported by institutions, the Subcommittee found that nine percent of schools reported more sexual assaults than they said they investigated.
The survey also found a lack of sexual assault training at universities. More 20 percent of schools did not train university staff on how to respond to sexual assaults, and more than 30 percent of schools failed to provide students with sexual assault training.
McCaskill was discouraged by the results of the survey.
“Unfortunately, the disturbing bottom line of this unprecedented, nationwide survey, is that many institutions continually violate the law and fail to follow best practices in how they handle sexual violence,” she said in a statement. “These failures affect nearly every stage of institutions’ response to such crimes, and these results should serve as a call to action to our colleges and universities to tackle this terrible crime.”
Read the full report here.
