chart of college presidents views on campus sexual assault
By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 9 years ago

Chart of the Day: College presidents think rape is only a problem at other schools

According to Inside Higher Ed’s annual survey, US college and university presidents demonstrate some very wishful thinking when it comes to sexual assault. While about a third believe that it is prevalent on American college campuses in general, just over 5 percent think it’s a problem on their campuses.

chart of college presidents views on campus sexual assault

As Five Thirty Eight points out, this kind of “not on my campus” thinking is pretty delusional, given the widespread attention paid to campus sexual assault and its mishandling at dozens of schools in recent years. But it’s in line with what we already know: that college administrations tend to treat rape as a PR problem that’s best not acknowledged unless absolutely forced to.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

Read more about Maya

Join the Conversation

Related Content

▪▪