UNC Has a Sexual Assault Problem

Nearly 35 percent of female UNC students say they have been sexually assaulted in their time at Chapel Hill (image)

According to an Association of American Universities survey conducted earlier this year, 20.7 percent of UNC students have experienced sexual assault since entering this University. Let that number sink in for a minute — twenty point seven percent. The survey was conducted across 33 colleges and universities in the United States, and the AAU has released the results of all participating schools. 

The results show that the national average of college students experiencing sexual assault since entering college is 13 percent. At UNC, that rate is 20.7 percent. Anything above zero percent is unacceptable, and 20.7 percent is absolutely intolerable. For female students, 35.3 percent have been sexually assaulted since entering UNC, and 26.4 percent nationally. Looking at the report, UNC has percentages higher than the national average in nearly every category. 

Many students find themselves asking how and why the rate at UNC is so much higher than the national average, and why it has increased by six and a half percent since the last study, conducted in 2015. The answer to that question is not simple, and it is not something one person can tell us or one answer could ever fulfill. 

But, as students, we should be outraged and questioning the effects of sexual assault prevention, organizations, and trainings across this campus; clearly these programs have not achieved their desired results. From UNC’s delayed response to an off campus rape in September, to this alarming rate of sexual assault prevalence, it is obvious that UNC has a problem. 

It is up to us, as students, to call upon our campus administration, sexual assault prevention organizations, and each other, to ensure this number decreases until it is at a constant zero.