One in 10 current female students at the University of Oregon claim they have been raped while attending college, according to a new survey of 982 students released Tuesday by Jennifer Freyd, a professor in the UO's Department of Psychology.

Equally alarming, only 14 percent of the rape victims -- one in seven -- say they reported the assault to university officials.

The on-line survey on sexual violence -- conducted in late summer by Freyd and doctoral students Marina N. Rosenthal and Carly Parnitzke Smith -- was one that university administrators went out of their way to discourage.

The university initially rejected Freyd's request for funding, with Robin Holmes, vice president for student affairs, citing her concerns that the survey might produce "confirmation bias in the results," owing to Freyd's ongoing dismay with UO's sexual violence policies.

In a letter to Randy Geller, then UO's general counsel, Freyd called those comments "false, malicious, harmful and seemingly retaliatory."

The administration -- which has convened its own sexual-violence task force -- eventually backed off and provided $20,000 in funding, all of which was used to compensate survey participants.

As Freyd told the UO task force Tuesday, the incidence of rape is only part of the problem among the 20,000 undergraduates seeking an education in Eugene.

Thirty-five percent of the women surveyed -- and 14 percent of the men -- report at least one sexual experience without their consent since enrolling at UO. (No first-year students were included.)

Of those who reported that nonconsensual experience, 73 percent indicated "knowing their perpetrator."  Those perpetrators were overwhelmingly (87 percent) male.

What's more, four in 10 of the students who dealt with nonconsensual sexual contact also felt they were subjected to what Freyd calls "institutional betrayal."

That ranged from believing UO "made it difficult to report the experience" or that the the university fostered an environment "where experience seemed common."

Scott Coltrane, the university's interim president, met with Freyd Monday, then wrote a rather restrained letter to the task force co-chairs, thanking Freyd, Rosenthal and Smith for the campus climate survey.

"Sexual violence on college campuses is a national concern," Coltrane notes, "and properly addressing this matter is one of our highest concerns.  We anticipate that Professor Freyd's work will add to our understanding of the issue, and the UO will consider the findings from her survey in conjunction with climate assessment work that the UO plans to undertake as part of a national effort."

In the 29 weeks since the university learned of rape allegations against basketball players Brandon Austin, Dominic Artis and Damyean Dotson -- long since booted from the team and campus -- those "plans," apparently, have not been formalized.

Freyd -- who was invited to the White House in April when the Obama administration demanded colleges and universities step up their vigilance on sexual assault -- has long argued that campus attitudes discourage the reporting of sexual assault.

This post will be updated.

-- Steve Duin