For years, advocates for colleges to do more to prevent and punish sexual assault on campus have cited a 2007 federal statistic that one in five female students experience sexual assault in college. President Obama and members of Congress have used the statistic, as have many others. But the statistic has been questioned for as long as it has been around. It is based on a survey of only two colleges and includes a definition of sexual assault so broad that, critics say, an unwanted kiss is effectively counted the same way as a rape.
Other studies (typically with different definitions) have offered conflicting data. A 2014 report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 6.1 female students per thousand were raped or sexually assaulted in college, and that the rate was higher for nonstudents. Some activists for victims of sexual assault have stopped using the one in five figure.
But the 20 percent figure received renewed backing on Friday when The Washington Post released a new national survey of college students, conducted with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and avoiding some of the shortcomings of the 2007 study. The Post's finding? One in five female college students experience sexual assault while in college. The survey also found that 5 percent of college men experience sexual assault.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/15/new-survey-finds-1-5-college-women-have-experienced-sexual-assault