Wow, these are pretty horrifying numbers. And directly from the Pentagon. (Thanks to TalkLeft for the heads up.) Story from Friday's NYT:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 — Nearly 12 percent of the women who graduated from the United States Air Force Academy this year were the victims of rape or attempted rape in their four years at the academy in Colorado Springs, with the vast majority never reporting the incidents to the authorities, according to a survey by the inspector general of the Defense Department. . .

The survey of some 579 women at the academy found that nearly 70 percent of them said they had been the victims of sexual harassment, of which 22 percent said they experienced "pressure for sexual favors." There were 659 women enrolled at the academy at the time of the survey.

Of the entire enrollment, 19 percent said they had been the victims of sexual assault and more than 7 percent said that assault took the form of rape or attempted rape. Four out of five women never came forward to report that they had been assaulted, the survey shows.

Want to hear the bigger scandal? Send your daughter--or yourself--to another university, and your chances for rape are probably even worse. Much worse.

I have spent much of the past six months covering the Academy for Slate, Salon, and others, and unfortunately, the story goes much deeper and gets much grimmer. In my opinion, there are at least three major scandals here:

First: The Academy's response to rapes. Also from the Times story, via the IG report:

The survey, given to women in May 2003, appeared to confirm the claims of the half-dozen or so former cadets who initially came forward earlier this year, revealing a problem of sexual assault at the academy that they described as widespread and the product of a culture hostile toward women. The women said victims of rape who came forward were routinely punished for minor infractions while their attackers escaped judgment, prompting most victims to remain silent. . .

That has got to stop. It was well documented all spring, starting with an excellent cover story breaking the scandal in Denver's alt weekly Westword. Since then, the Pentagon installed a new regime at the Academy, and began implementation of an Agenda For Change, and hopefully it will work. It is pretty extensive, though some of the measures have been tried and failed before. Worse, it fails to provide an environment likely to spur many cadets to report. But it's a complex, difficult problem that every university is grappling with poorly, and this is an aggressive start.

I have also met the two new generals a handful of times. Not enough to know them well, but my initial impression of the top general, Rosa, is very high. Until proven wrong, I trust the guy.

The bigger scandal: college women are in much greater danger than this new story suggests. Check out this Department of Justice study published in Dec 2000, The Sexual Victimization of College Women. Figures on reported rapes are notoriously unreliable, because (according to the same study), fewer than 5 percent of rape victims report to the police. That makes for one hell of an extrapolation. The most reliable data comes from anonymous surveying. The Justice Dept study used a similar methodology to the IG report; a random phone survery of 4,400 women attending 2- or 4-year colleges or universities across the country. Key finding: it estimated that nearly 20% of women would be raped during a 4-year college career. (The report indicates the total is probably higher because five years is more common now, but it's not at the Academy. Most cadets graduate in four years, so we'll stick to a four-year comparison).

The least-necessary scandal: The press knew about this all through the Air Force Academy scandal all spring. They focused on the horror of dozens of women reporting sexual assault (last I checked the number was up to 56 reported over ten years, including sexual harassment). We should be so lucky that it is only 56. That's a BS number and the press knows it. The number across the country is in the millions. We'll see how much that gets reported. Watch the press on this story. Watch them fixate on the Air Force Academy, ignoring Harvard, Princeton and everywhere else. Just watch.

UPDATE:

Please read the comments (and follow the link), for some insights from people who probably know more about the methodology in gathering rape data than I do. I'll try to address it better once I'm over the flu and can think clearly.