About that campus rape epidemic

If only 12% of campus sexual assaults get reported, then only 1 in 32 women at Ohio State are sexually assaulted, not 1 in 5.

And if the White House is right, then roughly 100% (98.14% to be exact) of female students at Ohio State are sexually assaulted.

Assuming that only 12% of campus sexual assaults at OSU are reported.

Assuming that 1 in 5 women at OSU are assaulted over 4 years

There’s a huge, irreconcilable statistical problem here. Using actual reported crime statistics on sexual offenses at almost any US college and applying the White House claim that only 12% of campus sexual assaults actually get reported, we have to conclude that nowhere near 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted while in college. Alternatively, if the “1 in 5 women” claim is true, the percentage of sexual assaults that don’t get reported to the campus police would have to be much lower than 12%. In other words, the claims that the White House uses don’t work together and they therefore both can’t be simultaneously correct.

Here’s an updated analysis of sexual assaults at the Ohio State University, summarized in the top table above. Over the most recent four-year period from 2010 to 2013, there were 104 reports of “forcible sexual offenses” to the OSU’s Department of Public Safety, which included incidents that allegedly took place on campus, in university residence halls, on non-campus properties including fraternity and sorority houses, and on public property adjacent to or accessible from the campus. Using the White House claim that only 12% of campus sexual assaults get reported, there would have been 763 unreported forcible sexual offenses at OSU during that period, bringing the total number of sexual assaults (reported + unreported) to 867 (see top table above).