Food for Thought

If You Don't Get Why Campus Rape Is A National Problem, Read This

''For many people, reading the Stanford University sexual assault victim's powerful letter to her assailant was an entry point into the complicated, unjust realities of reporting and punishing sexual assault. While the attention the case -- and similar ones at Baylor and Vanderbilt Universities -- received is unusual, the attacks are not. Here are some of the most important things you need to know about the scope of sexual assault on college campuses.

Around 1 in 5 women may experience sexual assault at college.

An average of 21 percent of female undergraduates told researchers they'd been sexually assaulted since starting school in a Bureau of Justice Statistics-funded study of nine unnamed U.S. colleges and universities published earlier this year. At some of the schools, the rate of sexual assault was as high as 1 in 2.

These results echo those of similar research, including studies by Mary Koss in the 1980s, a BJS-funded paper released in 2000, and surveys conducted by The Washington Post, the Association of American Universities and individual schools.