The trial of a Stanford University freshman charged with sexually assaulting an unconscious woman has drawn widespread criticism for the perceived leniency of the judge’s sentencing.
An overwhelming number of Americans agree that the six-month jail sentence is too easy, and most say cases like Stanford are fair game for politicians to discuss publicly.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 87 percent of American adults now consider sexual violence at colleges and universities to be at least a somewhat serious problem.
Further, 55 percent say it’s “very serious.”
These findings are up from 71 percent and 32 percent in September 2014 just after California passed its “yes means yes” bill which requires affirmative consent before sexual activity on state-funded campuses.
Just 10 percent consider sexual violence on college campuses a “not very” or “not at all” serious problem.
(To see survey question wording, click here.)
The national survey of 1,000 adults was conducted on Sunday and Monday by Rasmussen Reports.
The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
See methodology.
