Policies and Perceptions of Sexual Consent and Assault

性侵犯对大学生的发生率和影响产生了深远的影响，导致成绩下降、辍学率上升、抑郁症、吸毒和自杀倾向上升。接受联邦资助的学院和大学必须确保平等的教育机会，包括预防和解决性侵犯、性骚扰和歧视。为了执行这一命令，一些州已经通过了法律，详细说明了他们的大学如何定义性同意。它们体现在校园的政策、规则和培训课程中。该项目将分析与大学校园性行为有关的法律、政策和实践，以及对性同意和性侵犯的认知和理解。该项目将研究法律和政策如何影响大学生对性同意和相关行为的理解，以及他们对性侵犯的报告决定。它将采用对大量本科生样本的定性访谈，以及对主要来源文件的档案研究，在几个学院和州的匹配校园设计中。该项目将确定学生对性同意相关问题的理解，在他们自己的性接触中如何达成或没有达成同意，以及他们如何理解旨在调查和惩罚那些不遵守校园性侵犯规定的人的校园程序。研究产品将有助于各种学科关于法律和组织的研究，将研究如何统一的法律是制定和执行在不同国家的高等教育领域的不同组织，并将告知关于性侵犯，培训和反应的政策辩论。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The incidence and impact of sexual assault on college students produce profound effects, resulting in lower grades, higher dropout rates, higher rates of depression, drug use, and suicide attempts. Colleges and universities that receive federal funding are required to ensure equal educational opportunities, which include preventing and addressing sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination. To enforce this mandate, some states have passed laws that detail how their colleges define sexual consent. They are manifest in policies, rules, and training sessions for those on campus. This project will analyze the laws, policies, and practices that concern sexual behavior on college campuses as well as perceptions and understanding of sexual consent and assault.This project will examine how laws and policies affect college students’ understanding of sexual consent and related behaviors, as well as their reporting decisions for sexual assault. It will employ qualitative interviews of a large sample of undergraduate students, as well as archival research of primary source documents, in a matched campus design across several colleges and states. The project will ascertain students’ understanding of issues related to sexual consent, how consent was or was not achieved in their own sexual encounters, and how they understand campus processes designed to investigate and punish those who do not comply with campus rules about sexual assault. The research products will contribute to a variety of disciplines concerning the study of law and organizations, will examine how uniform law is enacted and enforced at different organizations in the field of higher education across different states, and will inform policy debates about sexual assault, training, and responses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.