Abstract
Although research has shown that undergraduate women are at high risk for experiencing sexual assault, little research has been conducted with undergraduate women who are attending a historically Black college or university (HBCU). The purpose of this research is to document the prevalence of different types of sexual assault among undergraduate women at HBCUs and make comparisons to data collected from undergraduate women at non-HBCUs. Data on sexual assault victimization were collected from 3,951 undergraduate women at HBCUs using a cross-sectional, web-based survey. These data are compared to data collected from 5,446 undergraduate women at non-HBCUs using the same research methods. Findings indicate that approximately 9.7% of undergraduate women at HBCUs report experiencing a completed sexual assault since entering college. This rate is considerably lower than the comparable rate obtained from undergraduate women at non-HBCUs (13.7%). This difference seems to be associated with differences in alcohol-use frequency. Perhaps undergraduate women at HBCUs drink alcohol much less frequently and are thus less likely to be sexually assaulted when they are incapacitated and unable to provide consent. Alcohol use frequency, while controlling for other factors, seems to have an independent association with the likelihood of an undergraduate woman being sexually assaulted. Implications for the creation and delivery of sexual assault risk reduction and prevention policies and programs are discussed.
References
|
Abbey, A. (1991). Acquaintance rape and alcohol consumption on college campuses: How are they linked? Journal of American College Health, 39, 165-169. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | |
|
Abbey, A. (2002). Alcohol-related sexual assault: a common problem among college students. Journal of Studies on Alcohol (Suppl. 14): 118-128. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Bachar, K., Koss, M. P. (2001). From prevalence to prevention: Closing the gap between what we know about rape and what we do. In Renzetti, C., Edleson, J., Bergen, R. K. (Eds.), Sourcebook on violence against women (pp. 117-142). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Google Scholar | |
|
Caetano, R., Clark, C. L., Tam, T. (1998). Alcohol consumption among racial/ethnic minorities: Theory and research. Alcohol Health Research World, 22, 233-241. Google Scholar | Medline | |
|
Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155-159. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241-1299. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Davies, H. T., Crombie, I. K., Tavaloki, M. (1998). When can odds ratios mislead? British Medical Journal, 3, 989-991. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Davis, A. Y. (1981). Women, race, and class. New York, NY: Random House. Google Scholar | |
|
Dillman, D. A. (2007). Mail and Internet surveys: The tailored design method (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Wiley. Google Scholar | |
|
Donovan, R., Williams, M. (2002). Living at the intersection: The effects of racism and sexism on Black rape survivors. Women & Therapy, 25(3), 95-105. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Dowdall, G. W. (2007). The role of alcohol abuse in college student victimization. In Fisher, B., Sloan, J. J. (Eds.), Campus crime: Legal, social, and policy perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 167-187). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Google Scholar | |
|
Fisher, B. S., Cullen, F. T., Turner, M. G. (2000). The sexual victimization of college women. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/182369.pdf Google Scholar | |
|
Fisher, B. S., Sloan, J. J., Cullen, F. T., Lu, C. (1998). Crime in the ivory tower: The level and sources of student victimization. Criminology, 36, 671-710. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Folsom, R. E., Singh, A. C. (2000, August). The generalized exponential model for sampling weight calibration for extreme values, non-response, and post-stratification. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research Methods of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association Meeting, Indianapolis, IN. Google Scholar | |
|
Greene, D. M., Navarro, R. L. (1998). Situation-specific assertiveness in the epidemiology of sexual victimization among university women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 589-604. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Gross, A. M., Winslett, A., Roberts, M., Gohm, C. L. (2006). An examination of sexual violence against college women. Violence Against Women,12, 288-300. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention . (2007). Prevalence and problems among different populations. Catalyst, 8(3), 2. Retrieved from http://www.higheredcenter.org/files/product/catalyst23.pdf Google Scholar | |
|
Hine, D. C. (1989). Rape and the inner lives of Black women in the Middle West: Preliminary thoughts on the culture of dissemblance. Signs, 14, 912-920. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Hooks, B. (1981). Ain’t I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston, MA: South End Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Koss, M. P., Gidycz, C. A., Wisniewski, N. (1987). The scope of rape: Incidence and prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of higher education students. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 162-170. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Krebs, C. P., Lindquist, C. H., Warner, T., Fisher, B. S., Martin, S. L. (2009a). College women’s experiences with physically forced, alcohol or other drug-enabled, and drug-facilitated sexual assault before and since entering college. Journal of American College Health, 57(6), 639-649. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Krebs, C. P., Lindquist, C. H., Warner, T., Fisher, B. S., Martin, S. L. (2009b). The differential risk factors of physically forced and alcohol or other drug-enabled sexual assault among university women. Violence and Victims, 24, 302-322. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Meilman, P. W., Presley, C. A., Cashin, J. R. (1995). The sober life at the historically Black colleges. Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 9, 98-100. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Mohler-Kuo, M., Dowdall, G. W., Koss, M. P., Wechsler, H. (2004). Correlates of rape while intoxicated in a national sample of college women. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 65, 37-45. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Murphy, Y., Hunt, V. A., Zajicek, A., Norris, A., Hamilton, L. (2008). Capturing the breadth and depth of human experiences: Incorporating intersectionality in social work practice research, policy, and education. Washington, DC: National Association of Social Work Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Provasnik, S., Shafer, L. L. (2004). Historically Black colleges and universities, 1976 to 2001 (U.S. Department of Education Publication No. NCES 2004-062). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/2004062.pdf Google Scholar | |
|
Sommerville, D. M. (2004). Rape and race in the nineteenth-century South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Tabachnick, J. (2009). Engaging bystanders in sexual violence prevention. Enola, PA: National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Google Scholar | |
|
Testa, M., Livingston, J. A., Leonard, K. E. (2003). Women’s substance use and experiences of intimate partner violence: A longitudinal investigation among a community sample. Addictive Behaviors, 28, 1649-1664. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Testa, M., Livingston, J., Vanzile-Tamsen, C., Frone, M. R. (2003). The role of women’s substance use in vulnerability to forcible and incapacitated rape. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 64, 756-764. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Testa, M., Vanzile-Tamsen, C., Livingston, J. (2004). The role of victim and perpetrator intoxication on sexual assault outcomes. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 65, 320-329. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Tourangeau, R., Rips, L., Rasinski, K. (2000). The psychology of survey response. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Tyler, K. A., Hoyt, D. R., Whitbeck, L. B. (1998). Coercive sexual strategies. Violence and Victims, 13, 47-61. Google Scholar | Medline | |
|
Ullman, S. E., Karabatsos, G., Koss, M. P. (1999). Alcohol and sexual assault in a national sample of college women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14, 603-625. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Wechsler, H., Davenport, A., Dowdall, G., Moeykens, B., Castillo, S. (1994). Health and behavioral consequences of binge drinking at colleges: A national survey of students at 140 campuses. JAMA, 272, 1672-1677. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Wechsler, H., Lee, J. E., Kuo, M., Lee, H. (2000). College binge drinking in the 1990s: A continuing problem. Results of the Harvard School of Public Health 1999 College Alcohol Study. Journal of American College Health, 48, 199-210. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
West, C. M. (2006). Sexual violence in the lives of Black women: Risk, response, and resilience. Harrisburg, PA: VAWnet Applied Research Forum. Retrieved from http://new.vawnet.org/Assoc_Files_VAWnet/AR_SVAAWomen.pdf Google Scholar | |
|
White, J. W., Smith, P. H. (2004). A longitudinal perspective on physical and sexual intimate partner violence against women (NCJ 199708). Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice. Google Scholar |

