Students protest outside PIKE fraternity on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. (Io Hartman/CU Independent)
Editor’s Note: This story contains descriptions of sexual violence and assault.
Students who have experienced a traumatic incident can contact free and confidential support resources through the University of Colorado Boulder’s Office of Victim Assistance on their website or by calling 303-492-8855.
Moving to End Sexual Assault provides support to survivors in the broader Boulder area. Information on their resources can be found here or by calling 303-443-7300.
Significantly fewer students at the University of Colorado Boulder were victims of sexual misconduct in 2021 compared to 2015; however, the severity of those instances has increased since 2015, according to a new survey published by the university.
The survey is intended to inform the new Sexual Misconduct Task Force on campus, which aims to help set university policy on sexual violence prevention in the coming months.
On Sept. 6, CU Boulder released a summary of the results from their 2021 Sexual Misconduct Survey. The survey is the next iteration of a 2015 initiative that studied similar patterns of sexual misconduct, including assault, harassment and exploitation, on campus. Originally, the university planned to repeat this survey every four years, but they had to delay it two years this time due to the pandemic.
“We were specifically interested in measuring behaviors and tactics that, for our jurisdiction, constitute sexual assault,” said Julie Volckens, the director of assessment at the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance (OIEC), who helped design both surveys. “So, we wanted to be able to talk about things that would fall under our policy [and/or] would fall under the state law.”
Two departments at CU Boulder, OIEC and the Office of Victim Assistance (OVA), lead the university’s efforts in sexual misconduct prevention and survivor support. CU Boulder has faced criticism from community members in recent years and months, as high-profile accusations of sexual violence have drawn media attention and sparked student protests.
“The pandemic effect”
The survey asked undergraduate and graduate student participants whether they had experienced sexual misconduct during their time at CU Boulder. All three of these forms of sexual misconduct decreased from 2015 to 2021.
CU Boulder reported that the rate of sexual assault for undergraduate women decreased from 28% in 2015 to 15% in 2021. The rate for undergraduate men decreased from 6% to 2%. Though this reported decrease cannot be attributed to a single cause, university officials say the pandemic likely had a significant impact.
