The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Monday released an unusually transparent report on sexual assault and harassment on its Cambridge campus, a move that may galvanize other institutions of higher education to take a deeper look at a national problem, and to be more forthcoming with what they find.

The report (pdf) was based on a survey that was sent to all of MIT’s 10,831 undergraduate and graduate students on April 27, 2014—two days before the White House Task Force called on all U.S. colleges and universities to undertake similar surveys on their campuses. Just over 3,800 MIT students responded, representing 35 percent of the enrolled population.

“A big-name school like MIT being ahead of the curve like this matters.”
—Andrea Pino, End Rape on Campus

The results show that MIT’s sexual assault problem is in line with that at other colleges. Seventeen percent of undergraduate females in the MIT survey reported having been sexually assaulted, compared with 19 percent nationwide (pdf). A full 35 percent said they’d experienced some form of sexual harassment, rape, or sexual assault. While two-thirds of those respondents said they’d told someone about the incident, just 5 percent said they’d reported the experience to someone in an official capacity. Most (72 percent) respondents indicated that another MIT student was responsible for the unwanted behavior.

“I am disturbed by the extent and nature of the problem reflected in the survey results,” university president L. Rafael Reif wrote in an email to MIT students and employees. “As a community, we depend on mutual respect and trust. Sexual assault violates our core MIT values. It has no place here. I am confident that, with this shared understanding and armed with this new data, the MIT community will find a path to significant positive change.”

In a separate letter (pdf) to the community, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart, who is spearheading the effort, said: “[T]he survey clearly tells us that, like many other colleges and universities, we face a serious problem.”

Observers praised the research university for both the nature of the survey questions and the transparency with which the results were revealed.