Opening Remarks
Barbara O'Connor, President, AAUW Educational Foundation

Good morning and thank you for joining us today. My name is Barbara O'Connor and I am the president of the AAUW Educational Foundation. I am pleased to be here to announce the release of our newest research report, Drawing the Line: Sexual Harassment on Campus.
 
The AAUW Educational Foundation has been at the forefront of sexual harassment research for more than a decade. In 1993 AAUW conducted its original survey on sexual harassment in schools and found that four out of five students in grades eight to 11 had experienced some form of sexual harassment at school. AAUW released Hostile Hallways: Bullying Teasing and Sexual Harassment in School in 2001. This follow-up survey found that sexual harassment, nearly a decade later, remained a major problem and a significant barrier to student learning in K-12 schools.

Drawing the Line takes this research to the next level — higher education. The report is based on the most comprehensive research on campus sexual harassment to date and presents some remarkable findings. As this research documents, a majority of college students experience some type of sexual harassment while at college. Nearly one-third experience some type of physical harassment.

Female students are particularly troubled by sexual harassment. They are upset, embarrassed, angered, and scared by these experiences, although it is rare that they actually report harassment to a college official. While most colleges and universities do have policies in place, sexual harassment continues to have a damaging impact on the educational experiences of many college students.

Sexual harassment pervades campus life and prevents college students, both male and female, from achieving the social and academic benefits that colleges and universities aim to provide. Drawing the Line: Sexual Harassment on Campus reveals that colleges and universities still have work to do to foster a campus climate that is free from bias and harassment so that all students have an equal opportunity to excel in higher education. With a college student population that has topped 10 million and continues to grow, creating a climate that is free from bias and harassment is a necessary concern for the entire higher education community.

With a special thanks to AAUW of Oregon for their generous support of this effort, let me now introduce Elena Silva, director of research for the AAUW Educational Foundation, to tell you more about the report.

Overview of Drawing the Line
Elena Silva, Director of Research, AAUW Educational Foundation

Thank you, Barbara. I'm pleased to be here today to share some of the key findings from this report. First, I would like to recognize my colleague, Catherine Hill, for her collaborative work on this project. I would also like to thank Dana Markow and her team at Harris Interactive, who worked closely with us to design, administer, and analyze the data for this report.

Let me begin by saying a little about the research methodology. Harris Interactive conducted the survey for this research in May 2005. The survey was administered online to 2,036 male and female undergraduate college students ages 18 to 24. The sample included students enrolled in public and private colleges and universities, including institutions offering two-year as well as four-year degrees.

We provided students with the following definition of sexual harassment:
Sexual harassment is "unwanted or unwelcome sexual behavior that interferes with your life." We asked that students consider this in the context of their college lives (in class, on campus, at college-related events). We also provided students with a list of 15 behaviors — both contact and noncontact — that when unwanted, serve as examples of sexual harassment.

This research offers the most comprehensive national data on campus sexual harassment. The findings, as Barbara suggested, are quite remarkable.

Sexual harassment is common among today's undergraduate students — so common that it seems normal, as one student put it. As the first chart illustrated, nearly two-thirds of college students (62 percent) say they have encountered some type of sexual harassment while at college. This translates into roughly six million college students who are sexually harassed nationwide.
    
Most college students are experiencing noncontact forms of harassment — jokes, gestures, remarks — but nearly one-third is experiencing some type of physical, contact sexual harassment (this ranges from being touched or grabbed to being forced to do something sexual).

Sexual harassment is not confined to any single place on campus. Among students who are harassed, more than one-third are harassed in the dorms or student housing (39 percent) or outside on campus grounds (37 percent). One-fifth is harassed in classrooms or lecture halls.

As the second chart illustrated, sexual harassment is happening at all types of colleges and universities — large and small, four-year and two-year, private and public. Our
research shows that students are somewhat more likely to be sexually harassed at
larger schools, four-year institutions, and private colleges.
          
Sexual harassment is affecting both male and female students. More than half of college students who have experienced harassment — both male and female — say they were upset by their experience. Yet the impact of sexual harassment is markedly differently for young women. Female students are more likely than their male peers to have negative behavioral and emotional responses to sexual harassment. Female students are more likely to take measures to avoid their harasser (48 percent versus 26 percent), stay away from particular buildings or places on campus (27 percent versus 11 percent), find it hard to study or pay attention in class (16 percent versus 8 percent), have trouble sleeping (16 percent versus 6 percent), and find someone to protect them (16 percent versus 4 percent).

The negative emotional responses are equally striking. As the third chart demonstrates, female students who are harassed are more likely than male students to feel embarrassed, angry, less confident, and afraid. Nearly one-fifth of female college students who are harassed say they feel disappointed with their college experience — compared to 11 percent of male students.

Notably, our research also shows differences in the experiences and responses of lesbian, gay, and bisexual students, who are not only more likely than heterosexual students to be harassed (71 percent versus 63 percent) but are also more likely to be embarrassed, angry, afraid, and disappointed in their college experience as a result.

One of the most compelling findings of this research is about who harasses and why. Forty-one percent of all students admit that they have sexually harassed someone on campus. Harassers are more likely male (51 percent of males v 31 percent of females admitted to it), and they tend to do it because they think it's funny. As the fourth chart shows, less than one-third say they harass because they thought the person liked it or because it's just a part of college life. And less than one-fifth (17 percent) say they did so because they were romantically interested in the person. By far, the most common rationale of harassers, both male and female, is "I thought it was funny."

Students are not harassing because they are trying to get something from the other person — they see themselves as misunderstood comedians who are doing what is acceptable, even expected. Students who are upset by harassment (remember, this is more than half of all students who experience harassment) seem to have a much quieter voice on campus. At least they feel as though they need to be quiet about it.

As the fifth chart illustrates, few college students report sexual harassment. Most students, if they tell anyone at all, confide in a friend. Very few students report sexual harassment to a college employee and many tell no one. Female students are more likely to tell someone, but still less than 10 percent of female students report harassment to a school employee. Men are more likely to tell no one at all (44 percent of males and, 27 percent females told no one). Of these students, less than 7 percent spoke with a college employee who they knew was a Title IX representative. Some students clearly don't know that there are resources to turn to. As one student put it, "I didn't know who to tell or how to say it." A common theme among students was a feeling of nervousness or discomfort about reporting something that might not be "a big enough deal." One young woman describes an incident that made her feel "horrible" and "helpless" but that she didn't report because, "It didn't seem to be that important."

Students are not talking openly and seriously about sexual harassment. But that doesn't mean they don't think it's a problem. Nor does it mean they don't have ideas to address harassment on campus. More than half of students surveyed (57 percent) said they would like their college or university to offer a web-based, confidential method for reporting sexual harassment.

We ask, "Where do you draw the line?" as a call to action to students, parents, faculty, campus deans, and administrators and to the collective higher education community. College is a time of emotional, intellectual, and physical development for young adults. While we need to respect students' freedom of expression and allow them to test social and cultural boundaries, this must be balanced with students' fundamental right to be free from sexual harassment as they pursue their education.

The results of our research are clear. Most college students encounter sexual harassment on their campus. Many — particularly young women — are embarrassed, angered, scared, and disappointed in their college experience as a result. And as a whole, college students do not have a clear or shared understanding of what to do about sexual harassment. 

The implications of campus sexual harassment go beyond any individual student or college or university. As these young adults will graduate and bring their attitudes and behaviors into the workplace and society, we must recognize that this is an issue for all of us. Thank you.

I would like to now turn to Ruth Sweetser, president of the American Association of University Women, who will tell you more about AAUW's efforts to support campus efforts to address sexual harassment.

AAUW Campus Action Projects
Ruth Sweetser, President, American Association of University Women

Thank you very much, Elena. Higher education is absolutely vital to sustaining and securing the gains made by women and girls in the last several decades. For this reason, AAUW has launched a new programmatic theme, Education as the Gateway to Women's Economic Security. We are developing programs throughout the organization that focus on equity in higher education and the workplace, financial literacy, and lifelong learning for women and girls. Our first initiative in this important new work is Building a Harassment-Free Campus.

As we've just heard, the magnitude and scope of sexual harassment on campuses is remarkable. The majority of female and male undergraduate students experience sexual harassment. From wounding jokes to unwanted physical contact, sexual harassment has a damaging impact on the student college experience. Students recognize that lines are being crossed, but they also know that these lines are undefined and open to interpretation. And so additional questions have emerged: How is the standard of appropriate behavior determined on a college campus? When is something funny and when is it serious? Who decides?

AAUW has launched campus action projects designed to help answer these questions. Working with 11 campuses in 10 states, we are engaging students and university officials to determine What exactly is sexual harassment and what is not? How often does it occur, at what cost, and to whom? Where and how do students and campus communities draw the line?

Many campuses expressed interest in working with AAUW. The campuses AAUW selected for this program were chosen for the strength of their proposals,their demonstrated efforts to proactively address campus sexual harassment, and their commitment to doing even more to create the best possible learning environment for their students.

Our research shows that harassment occurs at all kinds of campuses and across the country. Accordingly, the campus action projects are geographically diverse and embrace all types of schools. They are in New York and Louisiana, Florida and Oregon, Texas and Pennsylvania, Indiana and Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio. Some schools are small, others are large. Some are private and some are public. The projects will assess campus policies, foster dialogue, raise awareness, examine student experiences, and develop web-based tools for reporting.

On June 7 through 10, 2006, AAUW will gather campus leaders from across the country for a Summit on Sexual Harassment at our National Conference for College Women Student Leaders in Washington, D.C.

We are just beginning to understand the scope of this problem and to work with campuses to design tools for students to "draw the line" on sexual harassment. We will keep you updated on our progress, and we hope you will join AAUW in our efforts to build harassment-free campuses.  

We are very pleased to have with us today some of the students from AAUW Campus Action Projects,and now we'll hear from them. Thank you.

Student Statement
Heather Pennison, Sophomore, Georgia Southern University

I am honored to be here today to share my story.

Many people are probably not aware of how radically school environments have changed in the last five to 10 years. I’ve learned that what’s normal these days – constant catcalls, folks rubbing up against you or grabbing you and trying to kiss you – would have been unthinkable at the turn of the century. I wasn’t aware myself how unusual what’s normal at my university, and at my friends’ colleges, would seem to someone who graduated in the late 1990s. These days sexual harassment starts in elementary school. I’ve been putting up with constant joking and touching literally since I was just a child. I finally realized that this wasn’t normal when I was a junior in high school. Some boys grabbed a friend of mine right in front of me and threw her against the locker and began groping her all over. This was in a crowded school hallway. They were laughing and ignoring her shouts to stop. But she wouldn’t report them or press charges against them. I think she was just too traumatized.

Some friends and I tried to get our school to do something – to reprimand the boys or set some sort of police on harassment. The school would not engage at all because my friend was not interested in pressing charges. The school wasn’t willing to do anything to prevent, educate or end sexual harassment. I was shocked to find out that college was more of the same – same catcalls, same grabbing. If anything, it was worse.

But why not just have a sense of humor about it? Because I’m outraged. Why should we be embarrassed or angry or even afraid to attend classes or to go to certain places? But there is a very bright side to college. Georgia Southern takes the issue of sexual harassment seriously, and I have been able to work on developing an education campaign on sexual harassment. My experiences with sexual harassment have made me realize that education is the key, and with the help of the AAUW’s grant to build harassment-free campuses, I’m helping develop a program to educate students and faculty alike about the ever-increasing problem of sexual harassment.

We need to work together to teach students where to draw the line and how schools can help them do this. We will stand together to develop the best possible learning environment on our campus and at schools around the country.

Student Statement
Haley Pollack, Senior, Indiana University

I’d like to thank the AAUW Educational Foundation for this important report. The findings – nearly two-thirds of students reporting some sort of sexual harassment and nearly one-third reporting physical harassment – actually portray the environment on college campuses around the country.

They certainly represent my experiences and the experiences of my friends at schools all over. I have been sexually harassed more times than I care to count, men and women alike: hoots and hollers, uninvited groping, and some young men and women play games at the bars to see who can grab as many rear ends as possible before getting caught. And these are just some common examples.

You might say that these are just jokes, but they’re not. It’s all the time. It’s annoying, it’s distracting, and it can even become dangerous. When you’re used to being touched and groped against your will, how do you know when supposedly okay behavior is on the way to being dangerous? How do you tell your peers that their so-called compliments make you feel terrible? What do you do when you’re so numbed by pretending things are funny that really make you uncomfortable, and what do you do when someone really crosses the line?

The last straw for me was when my graduate assistant offered to change my grade in exchange for a sexual favor. Perhaps if I confronted this person today he would say he was just joking, but he wasn’t. I know he wasn’t. And being able to hide behind that excuse makes the event that much worse. Campuses need to change the way we report these incidents. Schools need to draw a very clear line about what’s appropriate and what is not. Sexual harassment has such a gray definition that we need to feel comfortable saying, that is not okay, and schools need to back us up on that.

We as students need to draw the line for each other, start to change the policies with sexual harassment, and promote equity among the genders. Since harassment has become a daily event on campuses and a part of popular culture, we as students need a way to report such incidents. By increasing the awareness of sexual harassment, it will be easier to report incidents. A change must be made, and a change starts now, with us, today.

Student Statement
Danianne Memory, Senior, Pennsylvania State University

Everything my fellow students have said this morning mirrors my personal experience as well as the experiences of many of my friends at their schools. It took something terrible to teach me that this pervasive culture of harassment is not normal, not funny, and not at all okay. Like Heather said earlier, it’s hard to know what is normal when your experience is so far outside of what should be normal – catcalls, obscene jokes, obscenities, grabbing and groping are such a part of college life that we don’t even pay attention to them. Schools must address sexual harassment because it is the first step on the continuum of sexual violence.

There are places you just don’t go on some campuses. For example, on Friday and Saturday nights on the main strips, if you aren’t paying attention, large groups of people will manhandle and grope you. It’s like being caught in a tidal wave of grabbing hands. Your objections will be ignored. Girls are on the lookout and take roundabout routes and side streets to avoid these groups. We shouldn’t have to do this. It’s just wrong and unfair. And that’s not all; that’s just one example of life at college these days.

I was so numbed by experiences like this that I didn’t notice warning signs when I was put into a dangerous situation. I was with a friend that I trusted. He allowed someone I didn’t know to rape me. In fact, he encouraged it. This turned my world upside down. I didn’t know where to go or who to turn to. I only told my best friend, but she wasn’t equipped to handle the situation. I was too ashamed to tell anyone else, so I kept my emotions bottled up inside for over a year. I didn’t know about any of the resources on campus that could have helped me before or after my ordeal. My campus has a women’s resource center, a 24-hour hotline, and counseling services available free of charge, but these wonderful things may as well not exist if you don’t know how to find them.

With the help of a grant from the AAUW, I am working with my school to develop a program for our campus and local area high schools to help prevent, report, and cope with sexual assault. I’ve taken back the power that was taken from me that night sophomore year. Thanks to AAUW and the support of faculty at Penn State, I can use this power to create change, and not just my university but at colleges across the country.

Closing Remarks
Ms. O'Connor

On behalf of the American Association of University Women and the AAUW Educational Foundation, we appreciate your being here this morning and thank you for attending. I wish to repeat my comment about how grateful we are to AAUW of Oregon for their generous support of both this Drawing the Line: Sexual Harassment on Campus report and for the AAUW Campus Action Projects.

Where do we go from here? Please join us in our efforts to build harassment-free campuses.

 Back to the Drawing the Line online press kit