Earlier this semester, members of the UW-Madison administration revealed the results of a survey taken by students last spring surrounding issues of sexual assault. The UW-Madison Sexual Assault Climate Survey Task Force continued this conversation Monday, focusing on what the results mean for LGBTQ+ community members.
Task force members gave a lengthy, detailed presentation on the survey’s key findings, including statistics showing a higher than average incidence of sexual assault at UW-Madison, especially for females, undergraduates or students with disabilities.
Results also showed that non-heterosexual students disproportionately reported sexual assault and sexual misconduct as compared to heterosexual peers.
“The disparities don’t surprise me, but it does surprise me how wide the disparities are,” said an audience member who wished to remain anonymous.
Recommendations for how to improve campus climate included targeted prevention efforts and improved support for minority groups who are disproportionately affected, including those who identify as LGBTQ+.
UW-Madison graduate student Valyncia Raphael and undergraduate student Kari Hajduk then opened up discussion for community members to give their own recommendations on how to improve future data collection, programming and services.
“We know the limitations of how you ask questions and how you label things, that matters. I’ve definitely been vocal about that with the task force,” Raphael said. “As a black woman, I’m not represented by the data ... That’s very limiting for me.”
Participants recommended improving existing support programs and student awareness of them, especially for minority groups. Audience members criticized UW-Madison Police Department’s “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign and other efforts for “norming” sexual violence.
“While the numbers for men being assaulted are smaller, they’re significant, I think. Yet I don’t see any efforts towards preventing or helping those survivors,” an anonymous participant said.
Hajduk said the task force will likely recommend more surveys in the future, whether they are in-house or done by another outside company.
“After four years we have a whole new set of students on campus and if we’re continually pushing out new prevention efforts, very quickly we could get very different data each year,” Hajduk said.
