Half of all Australian university students harassed: Report
More than half of university students in Australia were sexually harassed at least once in 2016, according to a Human Rights Commission survey. With over 30,000 responses registered across the country, it was found that women experienced harassment and assaults at higher rates than men. The survey was conducted amid claims that universities were responding poorly to sexual assault incidents.


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That brings our coverage of the AHRC?s landmark survey to a close.Here are the report?s main points:Submissions from survivors themselves told us how:Universities have promised to implement the report?s recommendations, but given how vocal advocates have been of past ?institutional failures?, the strength of their response and the timeline of implementation will be something to keep an eye on.Updated
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Here?s a final submission from someone who used to work as a residential tutor, who contacted Guardian Australia anonymously to share their story:I was working in one of the residential colleges as a member of the staff, and was supporting a student through a case of sexual assault. It was escalated to the university and an internal investigation was conducted (I was not involved in the investigation, but sat in during the interviews). Basically, it was a case of the student?s word against the perpetrator?s and therefore the university concluded that there was not enough evidence to take any action. Based on our experience and from the testimonies given by both sides, my colleagues at the college who were involved in supporting the student and I knew that the victim?s account is more likely to be true than not, but we could not do anything without proof. And because the report came back without any conclusive result, we could not take any official action against the perpetrator. It was frustrating and I felt that we had truly let the victim down. To make it worse, the victim and the alleged perpetrator had to remain staying in the same college till the end of the year.Updated
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Some personal stories from Twitter that have been shared with my colleague Calla Wahlquist. All have been published with their permission. As undergrads, my classmates & I were harassed & stalked by the same student. He followed us & did PUA experiments on us 'for his writing'.@callapilla pic.twitter.com/7FHtaZ58fr

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?The universities often actually make it worse?Here?s a video from Fair Agenda featuring speakers from End Rape on Campus, Hunting Ground Australia and student councils. They speak a bit more about how university processes let students down, either by acting too slowly or not at all. As we?ve seen in the report, there are a number of barriers that contribute to the ?damning statistic? that only 4% of students believe their universities are doing enough.Updated
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Here?s some more on methodology. The End Rape On Campus ambassador, Nina Funnell, has criticised the final report for scaling back its own sample size from an earlier census-esque proposal.The original survey was planned for all 1.3 million Australian university students but was reduced and only sent to 300,000, according to Funnell. Of those 300,000, only 31,000 answered. ?Perhaps the response rate would have been higher had the AHRC not trusted universities to select when to send the survey out,? she said.?Left to their own devices many of the universities sent the survey out during student exams when students have more pressing concerns.?Updated
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?In a lecture theatre of 100 students, two have been sexually assaulted.?Here?s the sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, talking through the report?s findings this morning.She said one in five students had been sexually harassed in a university setting last year, with women twice as likely as men to be sexually harassed and three times as likely to be sexually assaulted.It?s also worth noting that Jenkin?s hypothetical lecture theatre example only counts on-campus incidents of assault. If we count all incidents, that number rises to seven students out of 100, and one in 10 for female students.Updated
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Today?s report has been criticised by some advocates for implying that universities only have an obligation to deal with incidents that happen in a university setting ? either on campus or at a university event. But the co-women?s officer at the University of Sydney, Imogen Grant, told Guardian Australia today that assaults that occur outside of university grounds can still be reported to universities because they involve student perpetrators.She says we should keep in mind that student offenders can be disciplined by their university: Most incidents of assault occur around the broader university community, in share houses and at social events.But the perpetrators are still fellow students. And if the perpetrator is a fellow student, you can report that to the university and you can expect disciplinary action as well.It?s also an issue raised by End Rape On Campus ambassador Nina Funnell, who said in today?s media conference that the report?s 10-point plan had no recommendations for improving disciplinary proceedings against offenders. In response, the chair of Universities Australia, Prof Margaret Gardner, said she had ?begun a conversation? with universities about new misconduct proceedings. Here?s a submission from the report itself that claims this issue has been overlooked:A woman who was sexually assaulted on numerous occasions by her intimate partner, a fellow university student, was told the university had ?no power to do anything, because none of it occurred on-campus?.She felt that the university should have taken action, because she was aware of the perpetrator sexually assaulting at least two other women at her university. Updated
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Calla WahlquistAt some point in the pub crawl, usually on the walk between pubs two and three, one of the guys at the front of the group would tip their head back and start singing: ?I wish all the women.?It?s a classic rhyming song, where the lead singer makes observations like, ?I wish all the women/were waves in the ocean/and if I was a surfer/I?d ride them with my motion,? and everybody else sings it back. By the train ride home even the most devoted singers would have run out of verses and switched to ?Beastiality is best?. The hook is everybody chanting: ?Beastiality is best, boys, beastiality is best. Fuck a wallaby!?My two years living at a residential college at an Australian university were some 10 years ago now, so I can only remember what we were supposed to do to an owl.Details about the culture of sexual harassment and prevalence sexual assault at residential colleges contained in the AHRC report were appalling, but they did not surprise me. That?s just O-week. We had a golden bed springs award. I liked living at college. I was new to the city and did not know anyone and at college I had ready-made friends, some of whom remain close friends now. It?s only later that you think about what happened and realise it?s not normal. The Eagle Rock thing? We did that. There was a weekly newsletter about who had slept with who. Everyone told rape jokes. We drank so much we couldn?t move. People who did not join in were ostracised. I remember one occasion where a woman from another hall said she had been raped from a male from our hall. The universal judgment was that she was a slut, she was just making it up. Women did that all the time, didn?t they?Updated
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As mentioned earlier today, only 9% of students who had been sexually assaulted on their campus reported the attack to their university. Here are some examples, in survivors? own words, of why they decided not to pursue the perpetrators of their assault or harassment. Multiple submissions said they were deterred by their university?s failure to provide anonymous reporting:Our cohort for our course is incredibly small. I felt too scared to report these incidents. I couldn?t have action taken against him because everyone would find out.Another student had their identity disclosed to their rapist?s friends: The university broke confidentiality by informing organisers of the camp (i.e: the rapist?s friends) what I?d done. People spread lies about me and I was ostracised from the club.Another said the university forced them into a process of face-to-face ?mediation? with their harasser:When I complained to the head of school I had a ?mediation? session with the professor who was harassing me ... he stormed out and slammed the door. He wasn?t told to change his behaviour, the ?mediation session? was all that was done.For many respondents there was always an underlying social pressure not to report, stemming from a fear of being ridiculed, ostracised or shamed for not doing enough. Said one: It was my word against his. He?s known as being a really nice friendly guy so I didn?t think a lot of people would believe me or care.Updated
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Calla WahlquistI?m going to hand over the reins to my colleague Naaman Zhou, who was at the launch in Sydney today.Updated
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Residential colleges at Australian universities are full of students from regional and remote areas, as well as international students, many of whom are living away from home for the first time. They?re usually co-ed.They?re also one of the highest risk places on campus for sexual assault and sexual harassment, according to the AHRC survey. Twelve per cent of women and 3% of men who were sexually assaulted at a university in 2015 and 2016 said it had occurred at a residential college.The report found that hazing practices at colleges often involved excessive alcohol consumption and humiliating or degrading acts, ?and, in many cases, sexual harassment and sexual assault?.According to one submission:The aim is to get the freshers as drunk as possible. Maybe a secondary aim is to make them look as ridiculous and embarrassing as possible, giving them costumes, props, and even sometimes smearing food all over them.Said another:You had to participate, there was nothing you could do about it. The administration knew about this and they condoned this. The students had no power whatsoever, you couldn?t say anything. Hazing practices described in the report included getting female students to ?run the gauntlet?, which meant running down a hallway where male students stood in every doorway with the nozzle of a cask of wine sticking out their fly. Female students were required to kneel before each male resident and ?drink from his sack?.Another college had a ritual where all first-year female students had to remove their top when a certain song was played. They would be surrounded by male students and unable to leave the dance floor with their top still on. Other submissions described year-round traditions that focused on residents? sexual exploits.Conquests of guys getting girls from other colleges were broadcasted weekly in this gossip session the whole college had, where you would submit your experiences to an executive, and on weeknights we would gather and hear about everyone?s conquests that week ... women were described as objects or trophies. The report also found that power relationships between resident advisers ? usually senior students ? and first-year students, as well as the close proximity created by living in residential colleges and the easy access to both alcohol and bedrooms, were contributing factors in the high rates of sexual assault. Updated
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In addition to the survey data, the report contains details from almost 2,000 written submissions, mostly from students and former students sharing their experiences of sexual assault and harassment.Some said they dropped out of university to avoid bumping into their attacker.One person wrote:I left the course and tried studying by distance education but have now been so traumatised by ?higher education? institutions that I don?t feel able to set foot into study again.Said another:He delayed my education by a year and made me afraid to go to uni and at the time I truly didn?t see how bad the impact he was having on me, not even when I dropped out.The release of the report prompted other people to share their stories. This tweet is posted with the author?s permission.The reality of sexual assault and feeling unheard/unwelcome was one of the main reasons I dropped out of my phys/chem undergraduate degree.Updated
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