UNC will take AAU's sexual assault survey

The development of a new Association of American Universities survey on campus sexual assault climates continues — and though nearly half of the AAU’s members have declined, UNC will participate.

Hilary Delbridge, the spokeswoman for the University’s Title IX office, said the University is still in the planning process.

Members of the AAU were supposed to give notice of their intent to participate by Dec. 1. The survey is expected to be administered in April.

Leading the survey design team is Sandra Martin, associate dean for research at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. She could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Since plans for the survey were announced in November, professors nationwide have expressed concerns about it — including the study’s inability to be tailored to specific universities and its lack of a requirement to disclose final data.

Inside Higher Ed reported Tuesday that 26 of the 60 member institutions — including Princeton and Stanford universities — have declined the offer.

Michael Schoenfeld, a spokesman for Duke, said the university will not participate in the AAU’s effort and will instead conduct its own survey.

AAU spokesman Barry Toiv said he can’t confirm the number of universities participating in the survey until the necessary paperwork has been signed.

“That’s taking a while because universities have processes that sometimes take a long time,” he said.

In an op-ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education, AAU President Hunter Rawlings addressed concerns about secrecy in the survey design. He said the survey will be seen in draft form by each university so that they can go through individual institutional review boards.

Toiv said when institutional review boards look over the survey, they can make sure students’ rights will be protected and that everything will be in line with each university’s procedures.

“If the survey instrument is ideologically biased, even if unintentionally, it will produce results that will be less than useful for universities,” said John Bonine, a law professor at the University of Oregon, in an email. “They could take the air out of needed reforms that can protect our vulnerable students.”

Rawlings said the AAU’s survey would be better than one created by federal government, which would not account for differences among universities.

“Clearly the same survey for all of those institutions would not make sense,” Rawlings said.

But Bonine believes the AAU’s survey would do just that.

“It will be the same for small liberal arts colleges that have been invited to participate as it is for large AAU universities,” he said.

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