Sexual assault reports jump 61 percent at top colleges in two years

These numbers are still a fraction of the actual number of students who are sexual assaulted at college, studies show. But the trend is noteworthy and "nearly universal" across America's colleges, according to Brett Sokolow, the president of the law firm and consultancy the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, who has advised colleges on sexual assault policies for more than 15 years.

"It's not just that more women and men are reporting, they're reporting right away," he said. "The delay is gone."

All colleges and universities that receive federal funding must publish their crime statistics annually, as required by the 1990 Clery Act. At many schools, the number of reported "forcible sex offenses" has been long stuck in the single digits, infuriating advocates, who insist the low numbers aren't a rosy picture but a serious red flag.

Asked to explain the recent uptick, experts all pointed to the spotlight the issue has received over the last couple years, from student activism and dozens of federal Title IX complaints to unprecedented White House attention. As a result, they say, students are more likely to understand the crime, recognize their rights and know the process for reporting. And they're less likely to feel ashamed.

"The student activism campaign has been going for three decades, but for the last two years, you have students putting a face to this," said Alison Kiss, executive director of the nonprofit the Clery Center for Security on Campus. "In the past, we'd hear these stories, but survivors wouldn't want to attach their face to it publicly, for reasons I can understand… But now students are saying, 'I love my school and I want it to change.'"

She added: "It's, quite honestly, the power of the movement."

As more victims come forward, it also has a multiplier effect, according Tracey Vitchers, a spokeswoman for Students Active For Ending Rape. 

"A lot of it is strength in numbers," she said. "If you have multiple survivors coming forward, then they have the support of other survivors."

It also means more victims are discovering that their perpetrator is a serial offender, Vitchers added, causing them to see the classmate as an ongoing threat to the community and pushing them to report. 

The numbers published in universities' Clery reports are a famously lousy metric for the frequency of sexual assault on a campus, partly because of the law's loopholes.

One is geographic. If a reported sexual assault took place in an off-campus building that isn't owned by an officially recognized student group, a school doesn't have to publish it. So, off-campus parties, like those thrown by fraternities, tend to be left out of the published statistics entirely. And fraternity brothers are more likely to rape than men who do not join a frat — three times as likely in their first year in college.

Of the 12 reported sexual assaults in Yale University's Clery report, for example, none took place off campus. How many are they missing? There's finally a clue. Starting in 2012, Yale became the only college to voluntarily publish data on all its reports of sexual assault. In 2013, that number was 19, or 58 percent more than its Clery figure.

Another Clery booby trap is where schools collect their numbers. Under the law, a university must gather its stats from campus and local police, as well as school officials with "significant responsibility for student and campus activities,” such as deans, coaches and academic advisers.