Why We Didn't Take the AAU Survey, and What's Next

Princeton decided not to take the AAU sexual misconduct survey because of a Title IX deadline and concerns about customization. Students were opposed.

While the survey was customized to Princeton's specifications, administrators haven't planned specific action based on the results, and it didn't seem to make much of a splash on campus. Attendance has been low at meetings that have taken place in the wake of the survey.

The separate survey prevented us from comparing our numbers with other schools, but the University is planning to conduct a similar survey for the next two years, which will provide comparability across time. SHARE has been using the numbers in its communications with students.

Vice Provost for Institutional Diversity Michele Minter, who served on the faculty-student committee for sexual misconduct, explained that concerns including timing and survey design swayed the committee to recommend against the AAU survey.

President Eisgruber was approached by the AAU in the fall, she said, and sought a recommendation from the faculty-student committee on sexual misconduct in November, with the intention to follow the committee’s recommendation. According to a report in The Prince, he was initially supportive, and hoped to gain support from students for the survey.

Princeton made a financial commitment to the survey, which it honored, Minter said. In an email, she declined to say how much Princeton paid, but other schools paid about $80,000 to participate.

Eventually the faculty-student committee unanimously voted to advise that Princeton conduct its own survey.

“We would love to have the comparability,” Minter said, but said timing and customizability outweighed the concern.

A number of other Universities declined to participate in the AAU survey. Stanford University, which is also a member of the AAU,  conducted its own survey regarding sexual misconduct in the spring.

The school was criticized heavily by campus activists for trying to cover up rates of sexual misconduct by conducting its own survey and touting a lower number than other schools. Stanford separated sexual assault and sexual misconduct in its definitions, with a high standard for sexual assault.

Minter said that Princeton was under special time pressure because it had signed an agreement with the Office of Civil Rights after the school was found in violation of Title IX for its handling of accusations of sexual misconduct. A survey was part of the agreement, and a hold-up in the AAU survey could have left Princeton in violation of that agreement.

Yale University and Harvard Law School had also entered into resolution agreements with the Office of Civil Rights.

Minter also said that members of the committee wanted a greater degree of customization than was possible within the AAU survey, and were concerned that they would be able to review the survey questions. The questions had not been finalized when Princeton was making its decision.

While the apprehension makes sense, the We Speak survey isn’t especially customized – it includes nine questions that reference Princeton-specific organizations or places. The AAU survey provided opportunities for basically the same kind of customization. In questions about campus resources, it included University-specific lists.

There's one instance where Princeton's specialization seems especially useful. The AAU question about location of an incident of sexual misconduct focuses on frat houses, and Princeton provides a more tailored list of options which includes eating clubs and different residential locations. Those options, however, don't distinguish between specific eating clubs.

There was significant student push-back against the AAU survey. In addition to the unanimous vote of the faculty-student committee, USG signed a resolution asking President Eisgruber to delay his decision on Princeton’s participation in the survey.

In the email that announced the USG meeting about the survey, former USG President Shawon Jackson mentioned concerns about the AAU survey raised by group of academics in an open letter to University presidents. Shawon's email took a pretty strong position against the survey by including the concerns in the text of the email.

After those pointed calls for transparency, there appears to be less of a focus on direct action.

Minter said that administrators are not pushing academic statistical analysis of the numbers, but academics working on the topic could ask for Princeton's numbers.

At the meeting at the Women’s Center, Jackie Deitch-Stackhouse, director of SHARE said that she is hoping the findings will motivate increased participation in trainings that SHARE conducts regarding sexual misconduct. The trainings focus especially on bystander intervention – teaching students to confidently label inappropriate sexual behavior in order to intervene.

“People that commit sexual violence do not do it because they don’t understand what consent is,” Deitch-Stackhouse said.

This post is a follow-up to an earlier article on the We Speak Survey.