Texas universities with the most sexual assaults

PHOTOS: Texas universities and sexual assault

>>Here's how the other colleges rank... Texas A&M University on Aug. 20, 2018, announced policy changes designed to improve the way the university addresses sexual assault investigations. less PHOTOS: Texas universities and sexual assault Texas A&M University on Aug. 20, 2018, announced policy changes designed to improve the way the university addresses sexual assault ... more Photo: Satterfield & Pontikes Construc Photo: Satterfield & Pontikes Construc Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close Texas universities with the most sexual assaults 1 / 29 Back to Gallery

Baylor University stands far apart from its higher education counterparts as the Texas college with the most reported sexual assault-related crimes in 2015 per 1,000 students, the year the most recent data was available.

That year the university self reported 23 rapes and 21 stalking incidents on campus as part of its adherence to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, according to a Chron.com analysis of the school's crime report. The other sexual assault-related crimes included six dating violence incidents, three reports of fondling, and three reports of domestic violence.

When Baylor's 56 sexual assault-related crimes was compared to its student population that year (16,787), the school clocked 3.35 sexual assault-related crimes per 1,000 students. This is a dramatic increase from .79 students per 1,000 students in 2014, according to Clery data comparing the same sexual assault-related crimes (rape, fondling, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking).

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Baylor's 2015 figure is more than two times larger than Lamar University, which had the second most with 1.53 crimes per 1,000 students, according to Chron.com's analysis.

Baylor's place atop this list is no surprise considering the university's ongoing sexual assault scandals where "since 2011, 17 female students reported sexual or domestic assault charges against 19 Baylor football players," CBS reported. The scandals captured national headlines nearly every month in 2016, resulting in Baylor firing football coach Art Briles in May that year. That next month, university president Ken Starr resigned.

"We need to put this horrible experience behind us," Starr told ESPN in June 2016. "We need to be honest."

The Clery Act is named after Jeanne Clery, a student who was raped and murdered in April 1986. Clery, a freshmen, was in Stoughton Hall at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University when she was killed.

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"She was a random victim, and as the Clerys learned about the case, they became convinced that she died because of 'slipshod' campus security and accused the school of covering up campus crime," the Los Angeles Times reported in 2008. "[The family] sued Lehigh, contending that their daughter never would have attended the university if the record of crimes on its campus -- 38 assaults and other violent crimes over a three-year period -- had been made public."

The Clery Act was signed into federal law in 1990 and requires all universities to publicly publish an annual campus security report that contains data dating back three years. The reports must be published by Oct. 1 each year.

While the Clery Act has helped hold some universities accountable regarding crimes committed on campus, it has done little to lift the stigma most victims cannot overcome when it comes to reporting sexual violence.

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Only 20 percent of female student victims, age 18-24, report sexual violence to law enforcement, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).

"More than 50 percent of college sexual assaults occur in either August, September, October, or November," RAINN added.

Check out the slideshow above for a breakdown of Texas' top 18 universities by enrollment and how many sexual assault-related crimes each reported in 2015.