A new survey finds that a quarter of undergraduate women at more than two dozen universities say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at some point during their college career.
The survey by the Association of American Universities comes at a time of heightened public awareness and increased scrutiny of what schools are doing to combat sexual assault on campus. More than 150,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students at the organization's member schools participated.
The results were generally in line with past surveys on sexual assault and misconduct on college campuses - and confirmed that alcohol and drugs are important risk factors.
AAU President Hunter Rawlings says university leaders hope the results will help policymakers as they develop legislative and administrative responses to combat sexual assault on college campuses.