Content warning: The content of this article includes descriptions of sexual assault, rape and drugging.
The recent reopening of a sexual assault investigation at Cornell has brought sexual violence on college campuses back into the national conversation. The alleged drugging and gang rape of Jane Doe at Cornell’s chapter of the Chi Phi fraternity and the university’s inadequate response has led students at our peer institutions to reassess the safety of their own campuses. Last week, this editorial page board sought to do the same. We found, however, that no surveys about sexual assaults at Brown have been administered since 2019.
In a 2014 national push to address sexual violence on college campuses, the Department of Education released a list of 55 universities under investigation for improper processing of sexual assault under Title IX. Brown was added to this list after the University’s alleged mishandling of the assault of former student Lena Sclove ’15.5. In response to this investigation and student demands, the Brown University Task Force on Sexual Assault was assembled. In 2015, the task force released a report making several commendable recommendations. Today, it is clear that one of them has been forgotten: collecting data on sexual violence and making that data available to students. It’s time Brown establishes a regular anonymous survey of sexual assaults on campus.
There are two ways that the public might access statistics on sexual assault: through annually released data from universities’ Title IX offices, which include formal complaints of sexual misconduct, and via surveys that allow students to anonymously report their experiences on campus.
According to a national survey conducted in 2024, only 37.5% of students believed that allegations of sexual assault would be taken seriously by campus officials. Alarmingly, only 7.1% of students who were victims of sexual assault reported that they had contacted local police. Further, a 2000 study from the Department of Justice found that up to 95% of rapes of college women went unreported. It is abundantly clear that we can not solely rely on data collected from reported assaults. Anonymous surveys would capture a more accurate — albeit still incomplete — picture, as they do not require the multistep, potentially further traumatizing process of filing official incidents to Title IX offices.
In 2015 and 2019, Brown chose to participate in the Association of American Universities’ Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct. These external surveys reported sexual assault statistics by directly asking students for their experiences on campus rather than pulling from incidents officially reported to the Brown Title IX office. A comparison of Brown’s 2019 AAU survey data and the Title IX Office’s reported incidents highlights the failure of Title IX reports to represent the extent of sexual assaults on campus. In the 2018-19 academic year, there were 104 total incidents reported to Title IX. Based on the 14.9% of students who reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact on the AAU survey, approximately 1,049 students suffered nonconsensual contact that year. That’s a tenfold discrepancy.
In 2022, the AAU announced that it would discontinue its survey after Congress passed a law directing federal agencies to collect such data. Since then, there has been one cross-institutional survey from research agency Westat of 10 universities, including Harvard, Yale and Penn. Brown did not participate.
In addition to the many colleges that are mandated by their states to administer surveys, several universities conduct these surveys of their own volition. Princeton has a history of conducting its own survey on sexual misconduct and is currently in discussions regarding a “sexual climate, culture and conduct” subcommittee in the wake of recent events at Cornell. The University of Denver also repeatedly publishes its own sexual assault surveys — most recently in 2022. And the University of Virginia has a similar track record.
While the Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s 2025 Campus Climate Survey report states that 69.6% of undergraduates believe that Brown takes sexual harassment seriously and responds appropriately, the University fails to provide any information regarding sexual assault. When Brown presents incomplete information related to sexual violence on campus, survivors are much less likely to process that they have suffered sexual violence. In turn, survivors are less likely to report the crime to relevant authorities. A lack of transparency can also increase the shame and confusion that a student may feel after they have been assaulted, as a former Brown student and Cornell’s Jane Doe experienced.
In the Today@Brown newsletter sent to the Brown community on Oct. 6, the University administration claims to be “resolute” in its efforts to fight sexual violence. If this is truly their goal, the first step is for Brown to prioritize improving available data. While we applaud the acknowledgment of community concerns, the message offers no real changes to Brown’s rape policies nor any suggested changes to how sexual violence will be reported. Our campus needs both proactive solutions to address sexual assault and full transparency surrounding the reality of sexual violence on our campus. Empty promises to “stand ready” when something goes wrong are not enough.
Twelve years ago, Brown expressed its desire to be a “national leader” in sexual violence prevention. The Department of Education’s report from a decade ago still has a simple, powerful message: Acknowledging sexual violence on college campuses makes trauma less isolating, and acts as the first step towards combating it.
The Brown University Sexual Assault Response Line is 401-863-6000.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board, and its views are separate from those of The Herald’s newsroom and the 136th Editorial Board, which leads the paper. A majority of the editorial page board voted in favor of this piece. Please send responses to this editorial to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
