While an overwhelming majority of students reported feeling safe from sexual assault on the University of Michigan's campus, 22.5 percent of undergraduate women and 6.8 percent of undergraduate men reported having been victims of sexual assault in the past year, according to survey results released Wednesday by school officials.



The survey, issued to 3,000 students with a 67 percent response rate, defined sexual assault as any form of nonconsensual touching and kissing or oral, vaginal or anal penetration.

The findings mirrored a nationwide Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll of current and recent students, published June 12, which stated that 1 in 5 women say they were sexually assaulted while in college.

Michigan's survey was the first widespread survey the university has issued about sexual assault. It was administered about six weeks after U-M released its first-ever report solely devoted to sexual misconduct. The sexual misconduct report revealed that sexual misconduct rose to 129 incidents in 2014 from 83 the previous year.



A more in-depth breakdown of the student survey showed that 9.7 percent of all female students who responded said they experienced nonconsensual sexual penetration--oral, vaginal or anal--compared to 1.4 percent of male students.



In most of those instances, the nonconsensual penetration happened after verbal pressure, while under the influence of drugs or when the student was too drunk to stop the penetration from happening. Less than 1 percent of the students said that physical force was involved.



Verbal pressure was described in the survey as telling lies, threatening to end a relationship or spread rumors, showing displeasure, criticizing their sexuality or attractiveness or getting angry after being told no.



Physical force was described as "holding you down with their body weight, pinning your arms or having a weapon."



"As a university president, a physician-scientist, an educator and a father, the issue of sexual misconduct keeps me awake at night," U-M President Mark Schlissel said at a news conference.



"I feel personally responsible for the safety and well-being of all students at the University of Michigan."



According to the report, most sexual assaults occurred off or near campus, rather than on campus, but in 56 percent of the cases, students said another U-M student was responsible for the assault. Only 5.5 percent of students reported no prior relationship or did not know the perpetrator.



Holly Rider-Milkovich, director of the university's Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, said that going forward, the university is tasked with using the survey results to fine-tune programs that already are in place, and to continue education initiatives that will help curb sexual misconduct at Michigan and other universities.



"Our goal is to ... continue to delve into the data, share it broadly with the university community and discuss additional, longer-term strategies for enhancing our sexual misconduct prevention programs," she said.



The survey showed that 46 percent of students who were victims of a nonconsensual sexual experience told someone else, and it was usually a friend or a roommate.



Just 3.6 percent of students told an official resource and, of those who did, only about 60 percent said they received at least one response that made them feel supported. Most students who reported to an official resource chose to contact U-M's Counseling and Psychological Services or the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center.



Most who did not report their assaults said they did not want to get the person responsible in trouble, or they blamed themselves. Many said they felt embarrassed or ashamed, or did not think U-M would do anything or did not believe the incident was serious.

"Clearly we have more work to do to underscore the importance of reporting unwanted sexual behavior," Rider-Milkovich said.

"Reporting the behavior is an important first step that allows the university or police to take action and allows us to connect students to support services."

William Axinn, professor of sociology and former director of the Survey Research Center at the U-M Institute for Social Research, coordinated the team who designed the study.



He said he was pleased with the 67 percent response rate, and that U-M had such a high response rate, in part, because the university offered all participants an incentive, and used multiple modes to contact students instead of relying exclusively on email.



He said students were contacted by email, U.S. Postal Service letter, phone and, in some cases, through personal visits to collect their responses. The Survey Sciences Group, an Ann Arbor-based research firm, administered the survey.

U-M is one of more than 75 higher learning institutions in the country under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights over the handling of sexual assault cases.

The investigation, launched in 2014, stems from the university's mismanagement of a student's sexual assault complaints against former U-M student and football player Brendan Gibbons.

More from the survey

Axinn pulled several key data points from the students' response to the survey. Here are some of those points:

- Females were about eight times more likely than males to experience nonconsensual penetration.

- Undergraduates were three times more likely than graduate students to be at risk of nonconsensual penetration.

- Lesbian, gay or bisexual students were 2.5 times more likely than heterosexual students to experience unwanted penetration.

- Sorority or fraternity members were 2.5 times more likely to experience nonconsensual penetration than non-Greek students.

- Underrepresented minority students were two times more at risk of unwanted penetration than nonminority students.

- Club sports members were two times more likely than the general student population to experience nonconsensual penetration. There is no statistically significant difference related to varsity athletes and the general student population.

- There is no statistically significant difference in risk for undergraduate females by class rank--freshman, sophomore, junior or senior. In other words, undergraduate freshmen women were not more likely to be assaulted than undergraduates of any other class rank.

- The survey also asked more generally about sexual activity among students. Nearly 80 percent of all students surveyed reported they had engaged in some form of sexual activity, including kissing and fondling, in the past 12 months. Among those students, most sought--and gave--nonverbal consent.

- Approximately 16 percent of students were drinking more than half the time they were engaged in sexual activity during the past 12 months. Nearly 7 percent of students were drunk more than 50 percent of the time.

- Nearly 23 percent of all students reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment; most said they had been stared at in a sexual way, had been the subject of teasing comments of a sexual nature or someone had made a sexual motion toward the students, all in spite of requests to stop.

The complete 32-page analysis of the survey can be found here.

Jeremy Allen is the Higher Education reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Follow him on twitter at @JeremyAllenA2. Contact him at 810-247-4625 or jallen42@mlive.com.