The 2021 Sexual Misconduct survey was embedded within the larger 2021 Campus Culture Survey (CCS), administered between October 18th and November 28th, 2021. The Sexual Misconduct section of the survey was presented only to graduate and undergraduate students1. Survey participants were asked whether they had experienced sexual misconduct since becoming a student at CU Boulder. The number of survey participants and response rates were:
|
Students |
Population |
Responded |
Response Rate |
|
Undergraduate Women |
13,678 |
4,274 |
31% |
|
Undergraduate Men |
16,589 |
3,422 |
21% |
|
Graduate Women |
3,030 |
1,511 |
50% |
|
Graduate Men |
3,945 |
1,539 |
39% |
Although the 2021 overall response rate was lower in 2021 (29% responded to the sexual misconduct section of the Campus Culture Survey) as compared to 2015 (41% responded to the Sexual Misconduct Survey), the participants in both administrations were highly representative of the student population demographically, including for race and ethnicity, gender, school/college, and class level. Additional analyses will be performed to detect any differences among student populations related to sexual misconduct prevalence, characteristics, and perpetrators. Updates will be posted on this website as they become available.
It is not possible to compare all 2021 findings to 2015 results because of differences in the way that some questions were asked, as well as the addition of new questions in 2021.
Aggregate Rates of All Forms of Sexual Misconduct
All forms of sexual misconduct decreased from 2015 to 2021, with the exception of stalking, which remained about the same. Although the incidence of sexual assault, exploitation, and harassment as well as intimate partner violence may have indeed decreased due to factors such as the #metoo and #timesup movements, as well as campus prevention education efforts, compelling alternative explanations include:
- A “pandemic pause” effect on sexual activity resulting from:
- Decreased contact among students: remote classes, county and state health orders limiting parties and events, restricted contact among students living in the residence halls, and masking requirements.
- Increased protective factors such as students living at home with family and away from peers.
- Decreased alcohol use and binge drinking among first-year students.
- Decreased interest in being sexually intimate due to infection risk.
- Continued decline since 2000 in the percentage of teens and young adults who engage in sexual activity.
- Greater precision in the instructions, phrasing, and display logic of the 2021 sexual misconduct survey questions as compared to the 2015 version.
- A possible increase in participation in 2021 among students who had not experienced sexual misconduct since becoming a student at CU Boulder. In 2015, communications about the survey, including messaging from campus leadership and the survey invitation/reminders, were exclusively focused on sexual misconduct; many students who didn’t feel the issue was relevant to them may have ignored the survey messages. In contrast, 2021 survey messaging highlighted the campus culture content and gave much less emphasis to the sexual misconduct component of the student version of the CCS; we may have seen greater participation in 2021 from students who would have otherwise declined to participate if the sexual misconduct content had been more explicitly communicated.
1 Due to the small number of survey participants (n < 15) who have self-identified in the CU records system as agender/do not gender identify, gender queer/non-conforming, non-binary, gender not listed, trans female/trans woman, trans male/trans man, or two spirit, results for this group cannot be disaggregated in this report.