Cover graphic titled “Dreaming Together: California Student Survivors Reimagining Campus Responses to Sexual Violence.” Three illustrated portraits of students with serious, thoughtful expressions sit in circles connected by a curving line, against a soft pastel gradient of yellow, blue, pink, and purple.
EIN Presswire: New Center-Supported Research Introduces the “Survivors’ Calculus”

EIN Presswire: New Center-Supported Research Introduces the “Survivors’ Calculus”

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Read the study: Violence Against Women
Read the press release: George Mason University via EIN Presswire

When someone experiences sexual violence, the decision to seek support is rarely simple. A new Survivors + Allies study, supported by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center, offers a framework for understanding why.

Led by Dr. Sara Wilf, the research was published in their 2026 report “Dreaming Together: California Student Survivors Reimagining Campus Responses to Sexual Violence.” It draws on surveys of students, faculty, and staff across several University of California campuses, who described in their own words which people and organizations helped them most and least. From these accounts, the team developed the Survivors’ Calculus, a framework for the constant weighing of risks that survivors do while still coping with the harm itself. They consider safety, stigma, confidentiality, emotional cost, the consequences of reporting, and whether they will be believed.

The findings point to a troubling pattern: many survivors expect institutional systems to fail them or cause further harm, and for many, those expectations were borne out. Survivors described reporting channels, including police and campus Title IX offices, as retraumatizing, often feeling more focused on punishing perpetrators than on supporting healing. The burden was heavier for LGBTQIA+ and racially minoritized survivors, who reported greater fear of these channels and worse experiences when they used them.

Survivors consistently named confidential campus advocates and therapists as the most valuable sources of support, and many wanted resources that were trauma-informed and staffed by people who understand their identities and experiences.

The researchers hope campuses, policymakers, and community organizations will take up a wraparound approach to support. As Wilf puts it, the goal is to ensure survivors are not “shouldering the burden of navigating resources on their own.”

The CSW|Streisand Center is proud to have supported this work, which includes UCLA co-authors Leila Chiddick, Rachel LaPointe, and Victoria Copeland.