Introduction

In August 2017, the Australian Human Rights Commission (the Commission) released a report on its findings and analysis of the first national student survey on sexual assault and harassment in Australian universities. The report, Change the Course: National Report on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at Australian Universities (Change the Course), provided a significant indication of the nature and extent of university sexual violence. More importantly, it revealed widespread student dissatisfaction with university responses to reports of sexual violence, the adequacy of support services, and the utility of prevention measures.

In relation to prevalence, the report found that 51% of student respondents were sexually harassed in 2016, with 26% reporting sexual harassment in a university setting. A further 6.9% reported sexual assault in 2015 or 2016, with 1.6% of respondents reporting sexual assault in a university setting (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2017: 3–4). Importantly, the report also found that the vast majority of student respondents who reported sexual harassment or sexual assault did not make a formal complaint to their university.

The release of the Commission's report was a milestone in the struggle to address and prevent sexual harassment and sexual assault in Australian universities. However, the 2017 report was released decades after student activism first brought these issues to the attention of universities (Australian Human Rights Centre, 2017a: 15). Moreover, the report was published six years after the Commission's review into the treatment of women in the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), an academic facility operated jointly with the Department of Defence which warned that sexual harassment and assault was ‘a problem across Australian universities’ and that ADFA was ‘not alone in facing these challenges.’ (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2011: 33, xxv).

Despite these efforts to compel university action, it was not until the Australian release of The Hunting Ground documentary in 2015, and a series of interventions discussed in this chapter, that Australian universities collectively undertook to address campus sexual violence.