Student Disclosures of Sexual Assault, Dating Violence, Stalking, or Harassment

Students May Disclose to Faculty in a Number of Ways

Over 40% of faculty report receiving disclosures of crime victimization from students (with sexual assault as the most frequent crime disclosed) (Richards et al., 2013).  The majority of these disclosures are prompted by a specific topic or incident in class, and most occur during private meetings in faculty offices.  Disclosure can take many forms, and students have not always made a conscious decision to seek help when they reveal the assault, abuse, or stalking they have experienced to faculty. Examples of such disclosures may be:

  • Private, interpersonal disclosures during office hours or advising meetings.
  • Private, written disclosures in emails or course assignments.
  • Public disclosures during class discussions or presentations.
  • Premeditated disclosures that the student consciously chooses to make.
  • Spontaneous disclosures that occur in response to specific topics/discussions.
  • 3rd party disclosures where someone other than the victim describes the incident.

Students May Refer to the Incident in Many Ways

Sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and stalking are common experiences in the United States*:

  • Approximately 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced contact sexual violence in their lifetime (Smith et al., 2018)
  • Approximately 1 in 3 women and 1 in 3 men have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime (Smith et al., 2018)
  • Members of the LGBTQ+ community experience higher rates of sexual violence than the general population (Rothman et al., 2011)
  • Gender non-conforming individuals experience the highest rates of sexual violence (Grant et al., 2011)

Despite experiencing high levels of violence, most college students do not define their experiences as sexual assault, intimate partner violence, or stalking:

  • 60% of women whose experience met the legal definition of rape did not define the experience as rape (Littleton et al., 2017). 
  • 58% of college students whose experience met the legal definition of stalking did not define the experience as stalking (Jordan et al., 2007)
  • 38% of domestic abuse victims do not label their experiences as abuse (Hamby & Gray-Little, 2000).   

Students who disclose experiences of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and stalking may thus use terms such as “miscommunication, “bad sex,” or “unhealthy relationship,” to describe their experiences, but this does not mean that they did not experience violence, and the psychological consequences of the trauma remain the same.

* See Appendix A for legal definitions

References

Grant, J. M., Mottet, L. A., Tanis, J., Harrison, J., Herman, J. L., & Keisling, M. (2011). Injustice at every turn: A report of the National Gender Discrimination Survey. Retrieved from The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force: http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/reports/ntds_full.pdf (PDF)

Hamby, S. & Gray-Little, B. (2000).  Labeling partner violence:  When do victims differentiate among acts?  Violence and Victims, 15(2), 173-187.

Jordan, C., Wilcox, P., & Pritchard, A. (2007).  Stalking acknowledgement and reporting among college women experiencing intrusive behaviors:  Implications for the emergence of a classic stalking case.  Journal of Criminal Justice, 35, 556-569.

Littleton, H., Grills, A., Layh, M., & Rudolph, K. (2017).  Unacknowledged rape and re-victimization risk:  Examination of potential mediators.   Psychology of Women Quarterly, 41(4), 437-450.

Richards, T., Branch, K., & Hayes, R. (2013).  An exploratory examination of student to professor disclosures of crime victimization.  Violence Against Women, 19(11), 1408-1422.

Rothman, E. F., Exner, D., & Baughman, A. L. (2011). The prevalence of sexual assault against people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual in the United States: A systematic review. Trauma, Violence & Abuse, 12, 55-66.

Smith, S.G., Zhang, X., Basile, K.C., Merrick, M.T., Wang, J., Kresnow, M., Chen, J. (2018). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2015 Data Brief – Updated Release. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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