Brown University (above) and Connecticut University were home to the highest number of reported rapes in America in 2014. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Clery Report — which now uses the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting analysis’ definition of rape — forty-three students at both Brown and U-Conn told authorities they were raped. (Dartmouth was third on the list at 42 reported rapes.) Both Brown (9200 students) and U-Conn (26,500 students) are “gun free” zones; students, faculty and staff are prohibited from carrying firearms on campus. Please note . . .
Correlation does not equal causation. There are many factors contributing to this statistic. (For more context see the “top ten” universities below, by absolute numbers and per head of student population.) Also clock the fact that many if not most campus rapes and incidents of sexual assault go unreported. The stats may reflect the likelihood of rape reports at a given university, rather than their real number.
That said, how do you stop campus rape?
There are numerous methods for protecting young men and women from this heinous crime, from awareness campaigns to better lighting to campus supplied transportation to increased patrolling by security and many, many more. But there is no question that a firearm is an excellent tool to stop rape after prevention has failed, as the attacker begins his or her assault.
That’s without considering the [admittedly unquantifiable] deterrent effect of armed students on potential sexual predators. I’ll go so far as to say that Universities that deny Americans their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms are enabling rapists by reducing their risk of ballistic intervention.
Meanwhile, Harvard University (33 reported rapes in 2014) welcomed the Clery Report’s rape stats for 2014, the first year they were broken-out of the general findings. “We are pleased that the number of reported sexual assaults and other forms of sexual harassment, which are traditionally underreported, also has increased,” University spokesperson Tania M. deLuzuriaga wrote in an email to thecrimson.com.
Responding to the report, vox.com claim that Ranking colleges based on reported campus rapes is a horrible, dangerous idea. “If colleges know they’ll be vilified for high numbers of rape cases, they have a strong incentive to create a culture where students are subtly discouraged from reporting.” The scary part? That may actually be true.
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Total number of reported on-campus rapes
Brown: 43
U-Conn.: 43
Dartmouth College: 42
Wesleyan University: 37
University of Virginia: 35
Harvard: 33
University of North Carolina at Charlotte: 32
Rutgers-New Brunswick: 32
University of Vermont: 27
Stanford: 26
Rape reports per 1,000 students
Reed College: 12.9
Wesleyan: 11.5
Swarthmore College: 11.0
Knox College: 10.0
Williams College: 8.9
Pomona College: 8.5
Bowdoin College: 8.3
Gallaudet University: 8.1
Beloit College: 6.9
Dartmouth: 6.7